Abram Onkgopotse Tiro
Quick Facts
Biography
Abram Onkgopotse Tiro (1 November 1947 - 1 February 1974) was a South African student activist and black consciousness militant murdered by the apartheid state.
He was born in Dinokana, a small village near Zeerust. He was expelled from the University of the North (now known as University of Limpopo) in 1972 for his political activities. At university he had become an active member of the South African Student Organisation, out of which the Black Consciousness Movement grew. After his expulsion from the then University of the North in 1972, following his scathing critique of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, he went on to teach at Morris Isaacson High School near and around Central Western Jabavu (CWJ) in Soweto in 1973. Tsietsi Mashinini, who was an integral part of the 1976 student uprising, was one of Tiro's students during the time he taught at Morris Isaacson, and many of his students have recalled his impact on their own politicization during this period of student organization in South African history.>
Death
Tiro was killed by a parcel bomb in Botswana in 1974.