DR. FRANZ J. T. LEE'S BIOGRAPHY
Born in Ficksburg, South Africa, on October 29, 1938, classified as 'Coloured'
by the racist legislation of the time. The extreme poverty of his family - three of
his five brothers and sisters died before the age of one - He...
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DR. FRANZ J. T. LEE'S BIOGRAPHY
Born in Ficksburg, South Africa, on October 29, 1938, classified as 'Coloured'
by the racist legislation of the time. The extreme poverty of his family - three of
his five brothers and sisters died before the age of one - He was forced as a
young boy to tend cattle, to go to work on white-owned farms and to slave in
capitalist factories.
While working he attended Anglican and Roman Catholic mission schools and completed the
requirements for university entrance by taking correspondence courses. In 1959, he moved to
Capetown where he became active in the liberation movement. In 1960, during the witch-hunt
following the Sharpeville, Nyanga, and Langa massacres, he was fired as a 'security risk', declared a
"communist" and black-listed. For the next two years he was unable to get a job of any sort.
In 1961, he joined the newly-formed African People's Democratic Union of Southern Africa, a political
party committed to a programme of full democratic rights for
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