Frederick John Harris

Who was Frederick John Harris?

Frederick John Harris was a member of the anti-apartheid African Resistance Movement. On 24 July 1964, Harris telephoned to inform the Johannesburg Railway Police that a bomb had been planted on a whites-only platform of Johannesburg Railway Station. The bomb later exploded, killing a 77-year-old woman and injuring 23 others. Harris, a school teacher, was convicted of murder, and hanged on 1 April 1965. He was represented at trial by David Soggot, who later became one of South Africa's most prominent civil rights lawyers. At his cremation, 15-year-old Peter Hain stood and recited Ecclesiastes 3:3: ‘A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up". Peter Hain later became active in anti-apartheid resistance while in exile in London, and a primary proponent of sanctions to end apartheid. He later stood for a political seat in Britain and never returned to live in South Africa.

Harris was the only white person executed for crimes committed in resistance to apartheid.