"They just killed somebody in jail - a friend of mine - about 10 days before I was arrested."

These were Steve Bantu Biko's words in one of the last interviews he gave before his brutal murder in detention.

This somebody that Biko was referring to was Mapetla Mohapi. Biko did not know that 13 months later, he would die in almost similar circumstances as his friend Mohapi.

This month marks the 39th anniversary of Mohapi's death in detention. In a number of ways, his story embodies all the grotesque elements of what blackness meant under racist minority rule.

Mohapi was born on September 21 1947 in Sterkspruit, Eastern Cape. He was a year younger than Biko.

At the time of his death, then 28 years old, Mohapi held a degree in social work.

A question that Mohapi's life and example poses today is what sacrifices are we prepared to make to ensure that his dream of a society in which one's skin colour shall be of no consequence, is realised?

What are we willing to sacrifice to transform the racialised nature of poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment that affects mostly black people?

Like Biko, Mohapi was one of the early leaders of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). He joined the BCM through the South African Students Organisation (Saso), while a student at the University of the North (now the University of Limpopo).

He served Saso in a number of capacities, including as permanent secretary and administrator of a trust established to look after the needs of former political prisoners and their families.

Mohapi's rise in Saso and growing prominence as a freedom fighter began to attract the attention of the apartheid security establishment. This led to him being detained along with other leaders of Saso for his involvement in the famous Viva Frelimo rallies in 1974.

These rallies were organised by the leadership of Saso to celebrate the victory of the people of Mozambique over Portuguese settler-colonialism.

In April 1975, he was released without charge. Three months after being elected as Saso's permanent secretary, he was banned under the notorious Suppression of Communism Act and was confined to the areas of Zwelitsha and King William's Town.

Realising that the detention and constant harassment didn't tamper with his commitment to the liberation struggle, the apartheid security apparatus detained him again on July 16 1976, this time under the Terrorism Act.

This was to be his last detention. He died three weeks later, on August 5, under mysterious circumstances in police custody.

Mohapi was found hanging from a pair of jeans from the bars in his police cell, and the police's version was that he had committed suicide. They also claimed a suicide note had been found in his cell.

Both his family and the leadership of the BCM rejected the account of the police and a handwriting expert later confirmed that the note had been forged.

His widow Nonhle Mohapi later sued the minister of police blaming that the security police for her husband's death. Sadly, no one was held responsible for Mohapi's death.

Reflecting on the meaning of Mohapi's life, his peer and a BCM stalwart, Professor Itumeleng Mosala, had this to say: "He was a committed activist of the BCM. A strong soul. A sharp mind and courageous revolutionary. May his sacrifice inspire us. We shall forever remember him."

Tragic as his death might have been, Mohapi's life also embodied the virtues of selflessness and moral courage and it is people like him who inspired the poet Donato Mattera to write: "Salute the warrior, motionless on the battlefield, shorn of life, yet living evermore, he who gave his last, gave his sacred best, that we might be free, carrying our load, he wrote our destiny."

Mbele is essayist, black power activist and political commentator