Born in 1928, he attended St. Peter's Secondary School and Fort Hare University, where he graduated with a B.A. and a teacher's diploma. He was fired from teaching after participating as a volunteer in the 1952 Defiance Campaign. He took up law but did not finish his studies. In 1953 he attended the Bucharest World Youth Festival, and in May 1954 he was elected President of the African National Congress Youth League in the Transvaal.

He was a defendant in the Treason Trial until his release due to illness in August 1958. After 1960 he tried to leave South Africa but was arrested and served a long prison sentence on Robben Island. Released in the early 1970s, he has since been restricted to Mabopane outside Pretoria.