George Bizos (born 1928 in Greece) is a distinguished human rights advocate who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, most notably during the Rivonia Trial.

Bizos was the son of Antonios (known to his family and friends as "Antoni") Bizos, the mayor of the small village of Vasilitsi, south of Koroni and Kalamata on the Messinian peninsula of the Peloponese, Greece. In May 1941 at the age of thirteen, George Bizos and his father helped seven New Zealand soldiers (Don Gladding, Mick Karup, Peter Martin, John Lewis and three others) who were hiding in the hills to escape Nazi-occupied Greece to Crete. He says the escape did not go well and he was adrift for three days until he managed to attract the attention of crew on the British destroyer, HMS Kimberley, which was on its way to the Battle of Crete. After the battle HMS Kimberley dropped him off at Alexandria, Egypt.

As a refugee he was sent to South Africa and landed in Durban. From there he went by train to Johannesburg. He disembarked at the Braamfontein railway station because it was feared that the Ossewabrandwag would have a demonstration at the central station. The Ossewabrandwag blamed Jan Smuts for bringing the vuilgoed (rubbish) of Europe to South Africa. The local Greek community helped integrate him into society. Bizos did not immediately go to school because he could not speak English or Afrikaans but by 1948 — the year that the National Party was voted into power — Bizos had managed to gain entry into the law faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand. It was here that he says he first became politically active.

Abram Louis Fischer, commonly known as Bram Fischer, (23 April 1908 Bloemfontein - 8 May 1975 Bloemfontein) was a South African lawyer of Afrikaner descent, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial.

Fischer is widely acknowledged as a key figure in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Nelson Mandela wrote, Fischer was one of the "bravest and staunchest friends of the freedom struggle that I have ever known." From a prominent Afrikaner family, he gave up a life of privilege, rejected his heritage, and was ostracized by his own people, showing "a level of courage and sacrifice that was in a class by itself.

In Country of My Skull, Antjie Krog writes, "He was so much braver than the rest of us, he paid so much more, his life seems to have touched the lives of so many people - even after his death.”

In her account of her detention and solitary confinement by the South African Security Branch in 1963, Ruth First writes about being questioned about Fischer during an interrogation. She told her interrogators: "Bram is a friend, a very dear friend of mine, a wonderful man, and - thank God for the reputation of your people that you have at least one saving grace - he's an Afrikaner."

Zwelinzima Vavi (born 20 December 1962 ) is General Secretary of Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and Vice-Chairperson of the Millennium Labour Council.

Vavi was born on a farm in Hanover, Northern Cape, with a mineworker father, four brothers and seven sisters. Until he was baptised, he did not know the date of his birthday. He was a child labourer, looking for work among neighbouring farms.

In 1987 Vavi worked in a gold-mining territory of Klerksdorp and Orkney. He was a uranium plant clerk at Vaal Reefs mine, and joined the National Union of Mineworkers as an organizer. He was fired from AngloGold in 1987 following a massive miners' strike which crippled the Chamber of Mines. He then joined COSATU as a volunteer.

In 1988, he became COSATU's regional secretary for the Western Transvaal. In 1992 he took up the position of National Organizing Secretary. he served as COSATU's Deputy General Secretary from 1993 to 1999.

Vavi took centre stage in the four-month negotiation that preceded the 1997 Jobs Summit. He serves on the International Labour Organisation's commission on globalisation.