Abram Onkgopotse Tiro

Onkgopotse Tiro (9 November 1945 – 1 February 1974) was a South African student activist and black consciousness militant. He was born in Dinokana, a small village near Zeerust. He was expelled from the University of the North (now known as University of Limpopo) in 1972 for his political activities. At university he had become an active member of the South African Student Organisation, out of which the Black Consciousness Movement grew.

After his expulsion from the then University of the North in 1972, following his scathing critique of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, he went on to teach history at Morris Isaacson High School near and around Central Western Jabavu (CWJ) in Soweto in 1973. Tsietsi Mashinini, who was an integral part of the 1976 student uprising, was one the students during the time he taught at Morris Isaacson, and many of his students have recalled his impact on their own politicisation during this period of student organisation in South African history.<ref name="Glaser, Bo-Tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto, 1935-1976" /

Early life
Onkgopotse Abram Ramothibi Tiro was the first son born to Moleseng Anna Tiro (1923-2003) in Dinokana, a small village near Zeerust in present-day North West Province. Little is known of his father who left Tiro and his mother when he was a young child. His mother had at least two more children.

Tiro grew up in the relative poverty of a “hand to mouth existence” and was brought up as a Seventh Day Adventist.

Turfloop graduation speech
In 1972 Tiro delivered his seminal Black Consciousness graduation speech at the University of the North, known as Turfloop like the farm where it was built and now the University of Limpopo. The University had been set up exclusively for black students but was managed by whites.

In the “Turfloop Testimony” as it became known Tiro criticised both apartheid and the Bantu Education Act for requiring black students to undertake some of their education in Afrikaans. Tiro was immediately expelled by the white authorities concerned by its impact on black people in the audience. A subsequent protest resulted in many of his fellow students also being expelled.

The later Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which required schoolchildren to receive 50% of their education in Afrikaans has been recognised as a contributing factor to the Soweto uprising in 1976.

Death
Tiro was killed by a parcel bomb in Botswana in 1974.