About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

!Khoisan X

(formerly known as Benny Alexander)

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!Khoisan X was former secretary general of the Pan African Congress (PAC) and member of the Gauteng legislature. He retired from active politics in 1996 to concentrate on his studies, assist NGOs and civic structures, and to build black empowerment structures.

!Khoisan X was schooled in pan-Africanism by Robert Sobukwe who was banished to X's home town, Kimberley.

While working in Johannesburg for a pharmaceutical company, X helped to form the Black Health & Allied Workers' Union of South Africa. In 1986 he left his job to work full time for the South African Black Municipal and Allied Workers' Union.

He joined the PAC underground in 1983 and soon became the PAC's most recognisable face. He was instrumental in the formation of the Pan Africanist Movement in 1989, a legal front for the PAC, and was elected general secretary. He assumed the same position at the PAC's first post-unbanning congress in 1990.

Source: Mail & Guardian A-Z of SA Politics, 1994.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.