Ruth First was born in 1925 to parents Julius First and Matilda Levetan who emigrated to South Africa from Latvia in 1906 and became founding members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), the forerunner of the South African Communist Party (SACP).
First also joined the Communist Party and in 1949 she married Joe Slovo with whom she had three daughters.
First, an investigative journalist, was involved in the anti-apartheid struggle her entire life, was one of the defendants in the Treason Trial of 1956–1961 and was imprisoned, tortured and held in isolation without charge for 117 days under the Ninety-Day Detention Law in 1963. She was one of the few white South Africans to courageously stand against the racist apartheid system at that time.
First went into exile in the UK in 1964 and was a major figure in the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. She eventually became director of research at the Centre of African Studies (Centro de Estudos Africanos), Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique in 1978.
On August 17, 1982 she was assassinated by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the South African Police, by a parcel bomb which exploded in her office. A cruel and cowardly murder.
Remember Comrade Ruth First, anti-apartheid and Communist hero.
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