Neville Wilson Curtis was an anti-apartheid

Internal resistance to South African apartheid

Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection. It came from both black activists like Steve Biko and Desmond Tutu as well as...

 activist and leader of the National Union of South African Students

National Union of South African Students

The National Union of South African Students was an important force for Liberalism in South Africa in the latter part of the last century...

.

Curtis' parents John (Jack) and Joyce were active against apartheid as well. Joyce was involved in the Black Sash

Black Sash

The Black Sash was a non-violent white women's resistance organization founded in 1955 in South Africa by Jean Sinclair. The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government...

 movement and his father Jack ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party

Progressive Party (South Africa)

The Progressive Party was a liberal party in South Africa that opposed the ruling National Party's policies of apartheid, and championed the Rule of Law. For years its only member of parliament was Helen Suzman...

, which campaigned against apartheid.

Career

After being arrested for leading a march in 1968 to demand the release of people detained without trial, Neville Curtis became NUSAS Additional Deputy Vice President to fill a vacancy caused by the government’s expulsion of the incumbent Deputy, Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray (politician)

Andrew James Marshall Murray is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Democrats member of the Australian Senate from 1996 to 2008, representing Western Australia.Murray was born in Hove, in the United Kingdom...

. Curtis then became NUSAS President for the next two years from 1969, leading its activity as an anti-apartheid organisation.

As a leader of NUSAS, and friend of Steve Biko

Steve Biko

Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...

, Curtis supported the 1969 creation of a separate South African Students' Organisation

South African Students' Organisation

The South African Students' Organisation was a body of South African students who resisted apartheid through political action. The organization was formed in 1968, spearheaded by Steve Biko, and played a major role in the Black Consciousness Movement....

 (SASO), a Black Consciousness Movement student grouping. In 1973 Curtis was banned

Ban (law)

A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...

 by the apartheid government. In September 1974 he was charged with breaking the banning orders, and fled the country to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 where he had family connections. He applied for political asylum and was granted permanent residency

Permanent residency

Permanent residency refers to a person's visa status: the person is allowed to reside indefinitely within a country of which he or she is not a citizen. A person with such status is known as a permanent resident....

 by the Whitlam Labor government

Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...

.

In Australia, Curtis continued campaigning against apartheid. He went on a speaking tour for the Australian Union of Students

Australian Union of Students

The Australian Union of Students was formed in December 1970 as the successor to the National Union of Australian University Students as a representative body and lobby group for Australian University and College of Advanced Education students. It collapsed in 1984 and was succeeded by the...

 across Australia, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and other countries. He also worked for Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 Senator Arthur Gietzelt

Arthur Gietzelt

Arthur Thomas Gietzelt, AO is a former Australian politician and minister.Gietzelt was educated at Hurstville High School. He served in the armed forces in New Guinea during World War II from 1941 to 1945....

.

In 1984, Curtis' sister Jeanette Schoon, who had fled South Africa also, was killed along with her six year old daughter Katryn
by a parcel bomb that was sent by a death squad run by the apartheid government. The bomb was intended for her husband, Marius Schoon, an African National Congress

African National Congress

The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

 operative.

Curtis settled in Tasmania in the 1980s where he became a supporter of independent MP Bob Brown

Bob Brown

Robert James Brown is an Australian senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens and was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia...

 and the group that became the Tasmanian Greens

Tasmanian Greens

The Tasmanian Greens are a political party in Australia which developed from numerous environmental campaigns in Tasmania, including the flooding of Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam campaign...

. After five independent Greens were elected to state parliament in 1989, Curtis set up the magazine Daily Planet that went on to become the official magazine of the Tasmanian Greens..

Curtis was a founding sponsor of the Australian newspaper Green Left Weekly

Green Left Weekly

Green Left Weekly is an Australian radical left-wing newspaper, written by progressive activists to "present the views excluded by the big business media". It was published by the Democratic Socialist Perspective from its inception in 1990 until January 2010, when the DSP merged into the Socialist...

in 1991..

Curtis died after a long illness at his home in Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania on 15 February 2007.