Donald James Woods was born on the 15th December 1933 in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. For at least five generations his family had lived in the area known then as the Transkei. Their ancestors arriving as part of the group of 1820 settlers who originated mainly from Britain and Ireland. As his parents managed a trading post in what was then a reserve, the young Donald grew up having wide contact with the indigenous people of the area. Aside from his mother tongue of English, Donald Woods spoke fluent Afrikaans and Xhosa.
He was educated at Christian Brothers College in Kimberley and it was during that time that the National Party came to power and made clear their intentions of setting up a program of Apartheid. In 1952 Donald Woods went to Cape Town University to study law but eventually switched to journalism. At that time, he did support the idea of separate development but was not at all happy about the heavy handedness of the Government in setting up the structure of this policy, but during his studies he began to question the ideology itself and became politically active by joining the Liberal white Federal Party which was in opposition to Apartheid.
In 1965 Donald Woods went to work for the East London Daily Dispatch and together with his wife Wendy and their 6 children, settled down to family life in East London South Africa. At the age of 31 Donald Woods became Editor in Chief of the Daily Dispatch which had a policy critical of the apartheid system. He expanded readership of the paper to include Afrikaans readers as well as black readers from the neighbouring areas of the Ciskei and Transkei. He also flouted government regulations by integrating the editorial staff of the paper by seating white, black and coloured reporters in one area and he also had problems with the government of the time due to his anti government editorials.
After the 1976 Soweto riots a number of political organizations including the Black Consciousness movement under the leadership of Steve Biko was banned and a number of people put under house arrest amongst them Donald Woods. One of the reasons that Donald Woods was placed under house arrest was that he had become friendly with Steve Biko who had been involved in covert meetings with two banned liberation movements.
After Steve Biko was arrested, imprisoned and eventually beaten to death in police custody Donald Woods realized it was time to get out of the country and he was successfully smuggled out of the country into Lesotho where he was joined by his family and flown to London with U.N. passports where they all gained political asylum.
During his exile from South Africa Donald Woods wrote a number of books and continued to campaign against Apartheid. In 1994 Woods returned to South Africa to take part in the first democratic elections and cast his vote accordingly.
In 1997 Donald Woods was present at a ceremony when Nelson Mandela unveiled a statue in East London honouring Steve Biko. In 2001 Woods was awarded the CBE for his human rights services. In that same year Donald Woods died of Cancer in London at the age of 67.
Richard Attenborough’s film “Cry Freedom“ tells the story of Donald Woods and Steve Biko, both South African heroes. There is also a book written by John Briley available here.