Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom
Steve Bantu Biko was born December 18th 1946 and died September 12th 1977. He was an apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s till 1970s. He did founded the Black Consciousness Movement, which would empower much of the urban black population. And he became famous for his slogan “black is beautiful”, the meaning of it was that you should be happy as you are and begin to look upon yourself as a human being. Steve Biko wanted to be a doctor and ergo is the reason why he studied at a medical school. He was only 30 when he died. The reason of his death is because he was tortured by the police through 24 days, and then died at a police station in Pretoria. In his short life, he managed to get married and got two children. A year after his death, some of his writings were released under the title “I write what I like”.

About 15 years after his death, the movie “Cry Freedom” was released and is based on the story of South African activist Steve Bantu Biko and “Asking for trouble”, books by Donald Woods. The movie shapes itself around the friendship between Donald Woods, a white liberal journalist, and Steve Biko, the intellectual who expands Donald’s horizons. The first half of the movie is about the concentrating on Steve’s career, but the other half concerns Donald’s escape from South Africa. An hour or so into the movie, Steve Biko dies and it falls into a story about how a white South African (Donald Woods) newspaper editor flees from the South African police to publish the truth. Before Steve Biko dies, the brave newspaper editor, Donald Woods attacks Steve Biko as a “black racist”, but regrets his views after a personal meeting with him. Then Donald wants to take on the cause against apartheid to promote Steve’s view among the white and black populations of South Africa. But then Donald was banned by the South African police. And then he flees from the South African police to publish his story about how Steve Biko was murdered in prison.