Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman (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.