Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman
Suzman in the late 1950s
Member of Parliament
for Houghton
In office
15 April 1953 – 6 September 1989
Preceded byEric Bell
Succeeded byTony Leon
Personal details
Born
Helen Gavronsky

(1917-11-07)7 November 1917
Germiston, Transvaal, Union of South Africa
Died1 January 2009(2009-01-01) (aged 91)
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Political partyUnited
Progressive
Progressive Reform
Progressive Federal
Democratic
Democratic Alliance
SpouseMoses Suzman
Children2
RelativesJanet Suzman (niece)
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Signature

Helen Suzman, OMSG, DBE (née Gavronsky; 7 November 1917 – 1 January 2009) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. She represented a series of liberal and centre-left opposition parties during her 36-year tenure in the whites-only, National Party-controlled House of Assembly of South Africa at the height of apartheid.

She hosted the meeting that founded the Progressive Party in 1959, and was its only MP in the 160-member House for thirteen years. She was the only member of the South African Parliament to consistently and unequivocally oppose all apartheid legislation.

Suzman was instrumental in improving prison conditions for members of the banned African National Congress including Nelson Mandela, despite her reservations about Mandela's revolutionary policies, and was also known for using her parliamentary privilege to evade government censorship and pass information to the media about the worst abuses of apartheid. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.