Political activist Alan Brooks, 67
Posted: Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 8:03 pmMay 18, 1940 - May 10, 2008
Alan Brooks was a lifelong campaigner against injustice who played a pivotal role in Britain’s Anti-Apartheid Movement in the 1970s and 1980s.
Alan Keith Brooks was born in Bristol in 1940 and emigrated to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, with his family at the age of 7. Having secured a Beit Trust scholarship at the University of Cape Town, he studied law and later lectured in the African Studies department.
He joined the South African Liberal Party and was recruited into the secretive, mostly white, African Resistance Movement. Brooks became a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1962. In 1964, after a brief campaign of sabotage, ARM activists were arrested. Brooks was imprisoned for two years.
After his release he was deported to Britain. At Sussex University — which was also attended by his SACP colleague, later President, Thabo Mbeki — Brooks studied international politics. By 1969 he was the secretary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, in which role he organised protests against South Africa’s Springbok rugby team during the successful Stop the 70 Tour campaign. … Read full obituary
