First, Ruth (1925–1982)

South African journalist and opponent of apartheid. In her youth she joined the South African Communist Party and was secretary of the Progressive Youth Council. She worked as a journalist from 1947, the year she exposed the appalling conditions of black workers at Bethal Farm in South West Africa (modern Namibia). In 1956 she was arrested together with 156 others including Nelson Mandela on treason charges. Following the publication of her book South West Africa in 1963 she was prohibited from publishing any more of her writings. Later that year she was arrested and held in solitary confinement for 117 days. In 1964 she went into political exile in the UK where she became a lecturer at Durham University. In 1978 she left for Mozambique to become research director at the Centre for African Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. She was killed by a parcel bomb in 1982, an act widely attributed to the South African authorities.

She married the South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo in 1949.