LONDON – Mike Terry, who led Britain's anti-apartheid movement for nearly two decades and played a pivotal role in turning British public opinion against South Africa's white minority rule, has died. He was 61.
He died of a heart attack Tuesday, soon after returning from a school where he taught in north London, according to Tony Dykes, who took over from Terry at Action for Southern Africa — a successor to the Anti-Apartheid Movement that Terry led from 1975 to 1994.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement launched protests and demonstrations that helped persuade British universities, churches, unions, businesses and local governments to pull their investments from South Africa, a former British colony. It was part of a global boycott intended to pressure the country's white rulers to dismantle their system of racial segregation.
"Mike Terry will be remembered as a pillar of the struggle against apartheid, a British citizen who was a kindred spirit to the brothers and sisters of South Africa and to humanity as a whole," South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said in a statement.
Africa Action, the successor to the American Committee on Africa, which spearheaded the anti-apartheid movement in the United States, called Terry a "tremendous warrior."
"The anti-apartheid movement in Great Britain was constantly under attack," said Gerald Lemelle, Africa Action's executive director. "For guys like Mike Terry to get up ... and call for justice took an enormous amount of courage and strength."
Dykes said it was Terry's experience teaching in what is now known as Zimbabwe as a young man which prompted him to fight racial discrimination on African continent.
"His interest in commitment was first of all against racism and discrimination and injustice — and a passionate desire to aid South Africa end and overcome apartheid," Dykes said.
Terry first agitated against apartheid as a student activist and would go on to help lead an increasingly powerful protest movement against white minority rule in South Africa.
Terry was instrumental in organizing two concerts in the honor of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in London — one in 1988 to protest his detention at the hands of South African authorities, and another in 1990 to celebrate his release.
Mandela's foundation paid tribute to Terry, saying in a statement that he had shown "unflinching solidarity" with the people of South Africa.
Dykes said Terry was survived by his mother, his partner and a son.
Funeral arrangements were being discussed, but Dykes said he believed the family was planning a private service followed by a public ceremony.
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Associated Press Writer Donna Bryson in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Action for Southern Africa: http://www.actsa.org/
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