On the list of tragic evens that happened this week in history, this is the 30th anniversary of the death of anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko. South African police claimed his death was the result of his extended hunger strike, but it was later discovered to be the result of a beating by police. Like most people my age, I learned about Stephen Biko from the song by Peter Gabriel.
Last weekend I watched the movie Cry Freedom, which was adapted from the book Biko by Donald Woods, which was PG's inspiration to write the song "Biko".
There's a powerful scene at the end where "Biko" plays over a list of prisoners who died in police custody during apartheid alongside their "official" causes of death ("suicide by hanging", "accidental trauma"). It's still one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen in a movie, and was even more powerful when Cry Freedom came out in the dying days of South African apartheid in 1987.
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