Matemela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 1952) became general secretary of the powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa beginning in 1982. A prominent figure in extra-parliamentary politics in the 1980s through his work in NUM and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), he was elected secretary general of the African National Congress in 1991.

Cyril Ramaphosa was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 17, 1952, to Erdmuth and Samuel Ramaphosa. His father was a policeman. He grew up in the sprawling black township of Soweto and, in his late teens, moved (like many urban young people) to complete his schooling at a rural boarding school. He finished his high school in Sibasa in the northern Transvaal in 1971 and enrolled in law at the local Bantustan university, the University of the North (Turfloop), the scene in later years of particularly violent clashes between black African students and the South African...