Jack Simons

Jack Simons (1 February 190722 July 1995) was a South African university academic and anti-apartheid activist.

Early life Harold Jack Simons was born in 1907 in Riversdale, Cape Colony to father Hyman Simons, who had come to South Africa with Cecil Rhodes and Gertrude Morkel a teacher. He matriculated in 1924 and joined a law firm as an articled clerk, qualifying with a law certificate. During his travels in Europe he would see the rise of Fascism, Nazism as well as the Black Shirts in the United Kingdom, a civil war in Spain, organised Marxist study groups and would later join the British Communist Party in 1933. In 1956 Treason Trial he would assist Bram Fischer in the defence of the 156 people arrested for treason. He would be based there twice. First in 1977-78 when camps contain arrivals that went into exile after 1976 Soweto Riots and again from December 1978 to March 1979. The ANC camp at Novo Catengue in Angola would be subject to a bombing attack by the South African Air Force, though he and his students were not present that day. He would also teach at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania. This document, released in 1988, would be guideline for future negotiations between the ANC and the South African government.

Later life Simons and his wife would return to South Africa in 1990 soon after Nelson Mandela's release and would see the first free election in South Africa in 1994. He was given an honorary doctorate in Law from the University of Cape Town in 1994. He died in July 1995 and was survived by his wife and three children.