Ruth First (1925-1982) was a pioneering South African journalist, political activist and scholar who was a relentless foe of South Africa’s racist policy of apartheid.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s Activist was a pioneering South African journalist, political activist and scholar who was a relentless foe of South Africa’s racist policy of apartheid. A friend and colleague of Nelson Mandela, she spent her life trying to make her homeland a more fair and equitable place for all of its citizens, and ended up paying the ultimate price for her extraordinary efforts. Please welcome Ruth First.
Ruth First was born on May 4th, 1925 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was the daughter of Jewish immigrants. Her father, Julius, was a furniture manufacturer who left Latvia for South Africa when he was 10 years old. Her mother, Matilda, moved from Lithuania when she was just four. The two met and married in Johannesburg and, in 1921, they both became founding members of the Communist Party of South Africa.
Ruth’s early life was spent in a household filled with friends and visitors of all races and classes who were often in nearly constant debate about the major political and social issues of the day. Ruth was fascinated with activism and politics at an early age and was encouraged to take part in these discussions when it was appropriate. It didn’t hurt that Ruth had a formidable intellect, even as a child.
After graduating from the Jeppe High School for Girls, Ruth went on to attend the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 1942-1946, where she studied sociology, economic history, anthropology and native administration. She was also heavily involved in campus activism including as a founder of the Federation of Progressive Students and Secretary of the Young Communist League. This activism led her to become friends with like-minded fellow students like Nelson Mandela, Mozambican freedom fighter Eduardo Mondlane, and Ismail Meer.
After college graduation, Ruth briefly worked for the Johannesburg City Council before becoming the editor of a radical left-wing newspaper in 1947. Ruth thrived in this job where she wrote what are considered some of the most important pieces of South African investigative journalism of the period. Ruth mostly covered social movements and labor conditions, including women’s rights campaigns, migrant labour issues, the pervasiveness of slum-like living conditions, bus boycotts, and abusive working conditions at places like the infamous Bethal potato farms. Ruth also wrote some of the most important and impactful pieces on the racial segregation policies known as apartheid.
Ruth remained heavily politically active. She was involved in the Indian Passive Resistance campaign, the 1946 mineworkers' strike, and in protests surrounding the designation of communism as illegal in South Africa in 1950.
She also became a more ardent Marxist during this period, traveling to China and the Soviet Union where she carefully documented and later analyzed her experiences. With the former Communist party now deemed illegal, Ruth played a leading role in founding the new underground South African Communist Party. She is credited with forging close ties between the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress.
In 1949, Ruth married one of her good college friends, a labor organizer and attorney named Joe Slovo. The couple had three daughters. During the 1950s, their home became an important meeting spot for multicultural political events, making them a target for police harassment. In later books and interviews, Ruth’s daughters acknowledged that frequent house searches and having to watch their parents led away by the police on multiple occasions was a very unsettling component of their childhoods.
In 1953, Ruth became a founding member of the South African Congress of Democrats. The South African Congress of Democrats was the white component of the Congress Alliance, which was the major anti-apartheid political coalition. She took over as editor of Fighting Talk, a journal meant to support the Alliance. In this role, Ruth wrote about 15 stories a week and was known for her vivid style and often controversial subject matter. Ruth also played a major role in drafting the alliance’s renowned Freedom Charter.
In 1956, both Ruth and her husband were arrested and tried in the Treason Trial for their communist and anti-apartheid activities. The trial lasted 4 years, after which all 156 defendants were acquitted in March 1961. Following the acquittal, Ruth returned to journalism and activist organizing with a vengeance.
Then on August 9, 1963, Ruth was detained at a university library, one of many arrests or detentions that day of members of anti-apartheid and leftist groups. Among those arrested was Nelson Mandela, who received a life sentence for his supposed crimes. Though Ruth was, for whatever reason, not among those indicted on charges, the police used an obscure legal tactic to keep her locked away in solitary confinement for months. After finally being released, Ruth and her family fled South Africa and moved to London.
Once safely ensconced in North London, Ruth became laser focused on the issue of apartheid in South Africa. She joined the now official anti-apartheid movement and hosted discussions, lectures, and seminars. She also wrote a book about her arrest experience in 1963, which was later turned into a movie in which Ruth played herself.
Throughout the 1960s, Ruth became the premiere researcher and editor for books by other well-known movement figures. The books she worked on included Mandela's No Easy Walk to Freedom in 1967 among others.
Starting in 1973, Ruth was hired as a sociology lecturer at Durham University, where she remained for the next 6 years. During this period, Ruth wrote a number of important works of her own, including The Barrel of a Gun: the Politics of Coups d'etat in Africa and The South African Connection: Western Investment in Apartheid. Both are considered landmark works of Marxist political thought.
In 1977, Ruth left Durham University to take up a prestigious position as a professor and research director of the Centre for African Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. Her work during this period began to focus on migrant labor, leading to a seminal study called Black Gold: the Mozambican Miner, published in 1983.
Unfortunately, Ruth would never see its publication. On August 17th, 1982 Ruth was killed by a letter bomb following her attendance at a UNESCO conference. Her friend, Ronald Segal, described her death as ‘the final act of censorship.’ Heads-of-State and ambassadors from 34 countries attended Ruth’s funeral.
During the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in the 1990s, it was confirmed that Ruth was assassinated by the South African security police. Neither of the men directly involved in the bombing has ever faced punishment for this crime.
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