Joe Slovo
Part of a series on Apartheid Events Projects 1948 general election Coloured-vote constitutional crisis Treason Trial Sharpeville massacre Rivonia Trial Soweto uprising Church Street bombing Trojan Horse Incident Khotso House bombing Cape Town peace march CODESA Assassination of Chris Hani Saint James Church massacre Shell House massacre Organisations ANC APLA IFP AWB Black Sash CCB Conservative Party DP ECC FOSATU PP RP PFP HNP MK PAC UDF Broederbond National Party COSATU SACC SADF SAIC SAP SACP State Security Council People P. W. Botha Steve Biko F. W. de Klerk Ruth First Bram Fischer Arthur Goldreich Chris Hani Joel Joffe Ahmed Kathrada Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Mac Maharaj D. F. Malan Nelson Mandela Govan Mbeki Thabo Mbeki Raymond Mhlaba Benjamin Moloise Albertina Sisulu Walter Sisulu JG Strijdom Joe Slovo Helen Suzman Adelaide Tambo Oliver Tambo Eugène Terre'Blanche Desmond Tutu H. F. Verwoerd B. J. Vorster Places Bantustan District Six Robben Island Sophiatown South-West Africa Soweto Sun City Vlakplaas Related topics Cape Qualified Franchise Afrikaner nationalism Apartheid legislation Freedom Charter Sullivan Principles Kairos Document Disinvestment campaign South African Police Apartheid in popular culture Category v t e Joe Slovo (23 May 1926 – 6 January 1995, full name Yossel Mashel Slovo) was a South African politician, an opponent of the apartheid system. He was a long-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC's military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. A white South African citizen of Jewish Lithuanian family, Slovo was a delegate to the multiracial Congress of the People of June 1955 which drew up the Freedom Charter. He was imprisoned for six months in 1960, and emerged as a leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe the following year. He lived in exile from 1963 to 1990, conducting operations against the apartheid régime from the United Kingdom, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. In 1990 he returned to South Africa, and took part in the negotiations that ended apartheid. After the elections of 1994, he became Minister for Housing in Nelson Mandela's government. He died of cancer in 1995.