Biko letter to go under the hammer in Britain SA’s heritage body

A handwritten letter from the late Black Consciousness Movement leader and liberation struggle hero Steve Biko is set to be auctioned in the United Kingdom this weekend.

However, the South African National Heritage Council (NHC) has since written to International Autograph Auctions (IAA), one of the leading autograph and manuscript auction houses in Europe, and has vowed to do everything it can to stop the auction.

The Biko letter was penned on October 29 1973 to a King William’s Town magistrate.

In it, the struggle icon pleads for the magistrate to grant him permission to visit his wife Ntsiki, who was working at St Matthews Hospital in Keiskammahoek at the time.

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