Frederick John Harris
| Part of a series on |
| Apartheid |
|---|
|
Events and projects
|
|
Organisations |
|
People
|
|
Frederick John Harris (4 July 1937-1 April 1965)[1] was a member of the anti-apartheid African Resistance Movement (ARM). On 24 July 1964, Harris telephoned to inform the Johannesburg Railway Police that a bomb had been planted on a whites-only platform of Johannesburg Railway Station. The bomb later exploded, killing a 77-year-old woman and injuring 23 others. Harris, a school teacher, was convicted of murder, and hanged on 1 April 1965.[2] He was represented at trial by David Soggot, who later became one of South Africa's most prominent civil rights lawyers. At his cremation, 15-year-old Peter Hain (whose family had been friendly with Harris) stood and recited Ecclesiastes 3:3: ‘A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up".[3] Peter Hain later became active in anti-apartheid resistance while in exile in London, and a primary proponent of sanctions to end apartheid. He later stood for a political seat in Britain and never returned to live in South Africa.
Harris was the only white person executed for crimes committed in resistance to apartheid.[4]
References
- ↑ Frederick John Harris South African History Online
- ↑ Okoth, Assa (2006). A History of Africa: African nationalism and the de-colonisation process. East African Publishers. p. 389. ISBN 978-9966-25-358-3.
- ↑ Herbstein, Denis (2004). White lies: Canon Collins and the secret war against apartheid. James Currey Publishers. p. 340. ISBN 978-0-85255-885-0.
- ↑ Wetmore, Kevin J. (2002). The Athenian sun in an African sky: modern African adaptations of classical Greek tragedy. McFarland & Company. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-7864-1093-4.