Issy Heymann was born on the 24th December 1910 in Lithuania. At the age of nineteen, in 1931, Issy arrived in South Africa. In 1935 he became an executive member of the Native Trade Assistance Union and in 1936 he joined the South African Communist Party. He was also a member of the Jewish Workers Club.

Issy Heymann fought during the Second World War and when the war ended he became a member of the Springbok Legion. After the Communist Party was banned in 1950 he became a member of the Congress of Democrats

During the State of Emergency which was declared in 1960 Issy Heymann was detained for 90 days. He was arrested and jailed in 1966 and released in 1971.

Issy Heymann died in 1989.

Edward (Eddie) Roux was born 24.4.1903 in Johannesburg. He died on 2.3.1966. Eddie was a plant physiologist, chemist and political agitator. He was the eldest of 6 children born to Phillip R. Roux, a pharmacist and wife, Edith May Wilson.

Roux went to Jeppe High. He went onto Wits University where he obtained a B.S.c in botany and zoology in 1924. It was during 1929 that he obtained a Ph. D. at Cambridge. It was at this time that he became involved in communist activities. He began to organize Black workers in Durban, when Oswald Pirow, (Minister of Justice) banned him from the city.

In 1936 he resigned from the Communist Party. In 1946 he became senior lecturer in plant physiology at Wits. In 1957 he joined the Liberal Party, he was already chairman of the South African Rationalist Association. In 1962 he was promoted to Prof of botany.

In 1964 he was banned from entering or lecturing at any educational institution or publish any papers. His most important works are: "Rebel Pity", "Time longer than rope", "A history of the black man's struggle for freedom in S.A.", "Harvest & health in Africa", "The how & why of science". He also wrote numerous scientific papers.

Leif Egeland, Ex MP, BA (N.U.C), MA (S.A.), LL.D. (h.c.) (Cambridge), was prominent in law, politics and international diplomacy. He was member of Council and National Chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs 1959-1980, subsequently Honorary President of the Institute. He also served as Chairman of the Smuts Memorial Trust.

Joyce Harris was born on 4th (?) October 1919 and was educated at Johannesburg Girls' High School and WITS University where she qualified in Social Work. She worked, for many years for Home and School Council. She was a founder Member of the Black Sash and became National President in 1978. She wrote many articles, press statements and letters to the press protesting about social injustice and discriminatory legislation. Many of her letters were signed by other Black Sash office-bearers such as Jean Sinclair. She corresponded with politicians and others and prepared papers on topics of political interest. She emigrated to Canada in 1991.

Mrs Esme Berman was born in 1929 and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and Trinity College, London. She is a distinguished art critic and historian, and was involved in a great number of art projects. She was the founder of the Children's Art Centre in Johannesburg, Director of the Art Institute South Africa, executive member of the S.A. Association of Arts, professional adviser to the Rembrandt van Rijn Art Foundation and permanent art critic to the SABC and various journals. She was the selector and adjudicator for various national and international art exhibitions, and the author of 'Art and Artists of South Africa' and other books and articles.

Mrs Berman is now living in the USA.

Clive Nettleton was Assistant to the Director of the S.A. institute of Race Relations. This collection comprises SAIRR documents from 1970-1974 including minutes, correspondence, papers, records of the Youth Programme and Open School as well as records of other organisations - such as SASO, NUSAS, and Wilgespruit Fellowship Centre.

Julius Lewin was born in Oudtshoorn in 1907, and was educated at the University of Cape Town (B.A.1928, Ll.B. 1930). He practised at the Bar in Cape Town 1931-1933 and at the Middle Temple in London, 1936, later working as a Research Assistant and Tutor in the Colonial department of the university of London and as a lecturer at the London School of Economics.

From 1939-1967 he was a lecturer, later Senior Lecturer, later Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology and African Government at the University of the Witwatersrand. He emigrated to England in 1968, first taking up a research fellowship at the University of Manchester. Later he was visiting professor of public law at Columbia University, New York, {1969) and then he worked at the North East London Polytechnic.

He was a prolific writer, producing 4 books and a great number of articles in British, American and South African journals and newspapers, mainly on the subjects of law and politics in South Africa. He died in 1984.

David Everatt combined years of experience in applied social research, particularly in the areas of youth, violence and voter education in South Africa. He has received a doctorate from the University of Oxford and taught at the Universities of Cape Town, Rhodes and the Witwatersrand. He was formerly the Executive Director of the Community Agency for Social Research (CASE) and later went on to become a founding partner of Strategy and Tactics in 1998.

Also, see collection number A2419 for his PhD entitled "The politics of non-racialism: white opposition to apartheid, 1945-1960".

Abram ("Bram") Fischer was a leading Afrikaner advocate, defence lawyer in the 1956 Treason trial and the 1964 Rivonia trial, a member of the South African Communist Party and the Congress of Democrats.

C.T. Loram 1879-1940, educator and professor of education in South Africa and later at Yale, was inspector of schools in Natal 1906-1917, Chief Inspector of Native Education 1917-1920, member of the South African Native Affairs Commission 1920-1929, Superintendent of Education 1930-1931. He was the first chairman of the South African Institute of Race Relations but left to take up a position at Yale University in 1931.