Ruth First

Heloise Ruth First (1925 – 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, investigative journalist, and university scholar. The daughter of Jewish socialist immigrants, First studied at Witwatersrand alongside Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane, joining the underground South African Communist Party and the African National Congress.

As editor of radical publications such as The Guardian and New Age, First published fearless exposés of racial exploitation, including the brutal conditions of forced labor on Bethal potato farms. Arrested following the 1963 Rivonia police raid, she was held in solitary confinement for 117 days, an ordeal she recounted in her acclaimed memoir 117 Days. In exile in Mozambique, while serving as research director at the Eduardo Mondlane University, she was assassinated on August 17, 1982, by a parcel bomb addressed to her by apartheid state agents.