Neville Curtis

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Neville Wilson Curtis (born

anti-apartheid activist and leader of the National Union of South African Students
.

Curtis' parents John (Jack) and Joyce were active against apartheid as well. Joyce was involved in the Black Sash movement and his father Jack ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party, which campaigned against apartheid.

Career

After being arrested for leading a march in 1968 to demand the release of people detained without trial,[1] Neville Curtis became NUSAS Additional Deputy Vice President to fill a vacancy caused by the government's expulsion of the incumbent Deputy, Andrew Murray. Curtis then became NUSAS President for the next two years from 1969, leading its activity as an anti-apartheid organisation.

As a leader of NUSAS, and friend of

political asylum and was granted permanent residency by the Whitlam Labor government
.

In Australia, Curtis continued campaigning against apartheid. He went on a speaking tour for the Australian Union of Students across Australia, New Zealand and other countries. He also worked for Labor Party Senator Arthur Gietzelt.

In 1984, Curtis' sister Jeanette Schoon, who had fled South Africa also, was killed along with her six-year-old daughter Katryn by a

Marius Schoon, who, like her, was an African National Congress operative; it has never been established whether the bomb was addressed to him alone or to both of them.[4]

Curtis settled in Tasmania in the 1980s where he became a supporter of independent MP Bob Brown and the group that became the Tasmanian Greens. After five independent Greens were elected to state parliament in 1989, Curtis set up the magazine Daily Planet that went on to become the official magazine of the Tasmanian Greens.[5]

Curtis was a founding sponsor of the Australian newspaper

Green Left Weekly in 1991.[6]

Curtis died after a long illness at his home in White Beach, Tasmania on 15 February 2007.

See also

References

  • Extract from Neville Curtis' funeral service, appendix in John Curtis obituary [2]
  • Obituary in
    Green Left Weekly [3]

Notes

  1. ^ Horst Kleinschmidt, quoted in Melanie Gosling, 'Former anti-apartheid activist, Curtis dies' Cape Times, 16 February 2007 [1]
  2. ^ Definition of www.africanhistory.about.com Archived 25 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Jeanette Eva Schoon (née Curtis)". South African History Online. 15 August 2012. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  4. ^ Daley, Suzanne (27 September 1996). "South African Links Top Spy To the Slaying of Olof Palme". The New York Times.
  5. ^ The Daily planet. Neville Curtis for the Green Independents. 1989.
  6. Green Left Weekly
    issue one, 18 February 1991
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