35 Members of the Order of Luthuli

The Order of Luthuli is a South African honour. It was instituted on 30 November 2003, and is granted by the president of South Africa, for contributions to South Africa in the following fields: (i) the struggle for democracy, (ii) building democracy and human rights, (iii) nation-building, (iv) justice and peace, and (v) conflict resolution. It has three classes:Gold (OLG), for exceptional contributions, Silver (OLS), for excellent contributions, Bronze (OLB), for outstanding contributions.

Neville Edward Alexander was a proponent of a multilingual South Africa and a former revolutionary who spent ten years on Robben Island as a fellow-prisoner of Nelson Mandela.

Abdul Kader Asmal was a South African politician. He was a professor of human rights at the University of the Western Cape, chairman of the council of the University of the North and vice-president of the African Association of International Law. He was married to Louise Parkinson and had two sons.

Hilda Bernstein was a British-born author, artist, and an activist against apartheid and for women's rights.

Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. He played a key role in political organizations such as the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC). He helped form the Congress of Democrats to bolster white participation in the ANC, and he brought its allies together to establish a Congress of the People, working closely with Nelson Mandela.

Sonia Bunting, OLS was a South African journalist, and a political and anti-apartheid activist. After being charged with treason and imprisoned, being detained a second time, and barred from publishing, she and her husband went into exile in London, where she joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and organised the World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners. When the African National Congress (ANC) ban was lifted in 1991, she returned to South Africa where she was involved in political activism until her death in 2001. She was posthumously honored by the government of South Africa with the Order of Luthuli in Silver in 2010.

Amina Desai was South Africa's longest serving female Indian political prisoner.

Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma, sometimes referred to by her initials NDZ, is a South African politician, doctor and anti-apartheid activist, currently serving as Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. She was South Africa's Minister of Health from 1994 to 1999, under President Nelson Mandela, Minister of Foreign Affairs, under both President Thabo Mbeki and President Kgalema Motlanthe, Minister of Home Affairs in the first term of former President Jacob Zuma and Minister in the Presidency for the National Planning Commission for Policy and Evaluation under President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Bettie du Toit OLS was a trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.

John Langalibalele Dube was a South African essayist, philosopher, educator, politician, publisher, editor, novelist and poet. He was the founding president of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which became the African National Congress in 1923. Dube served as the president of SANNC between 1912 and 1917. He was brought to America by returning missionaries and attended Oberlin Preparatory Academy. He returned to South Africa, where in 1903 he and his first wife, Nokutela Dube, founded a newspaper, what is now Ilanga lase Natal.

Farid Esack is a South African Muslim scholar, writer, and political activist known for his opposition to apartheid, his appointment by Nelson Mandela as a gender equity commissioner, and his work for inter-religious dialogue.

Heloise Ruth First was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar. She was assassinated in Mozambique, where she was working in exile, by a parcel bomb built by South African police.

Mary Fitzgerald was an Irish-born South African political activist and is considered to have been the first female trade unionist in the country.

Denis Theodore Goldberg was a South African social campaigner, who was active in the struggle against apartheid. He was accused No. 3 in the Rivonia Trial, alongside the better-known Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, where he was also the youngest of the defendants. He was imprisoned for 22 years, along with other key members of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. After his release in 1985 he continued to campaign against apartheid from his base in London with his family, until the apartheid system was fully abolished with the 1994 election. He returned to South Africa in 2002 and founded the non-profit Denis Goldberg Legacy Foundation Trust in 2015. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in July 2019, and died in Cape Town on 29 April 2020.

Wolfie Kodesh was a South African Communist party activist. Kodesh was born in the Transvaal mining town of Benoni. He became involved with the South African Communist party in 1938, selling the leftwing newspaper, the Guardian.

Anton Muziwakhe Lembede was a South African activist and founding president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). He has been described as "the principal architect of South Africa's first full-fledged ideology of African nationalism." Lembede had a strong influence on Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. Lembede was regarded as the progenitor of the "Programme of Action" that was adopted as a guiding document by the 1949 meeting of the African National Congress. He died in 1947, aged 33.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".

Clarence Mlami Makwetu was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician, and leader of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) during the historic 1994 elections.

Mosibudi Mangena is a South Africa politician, former President of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO). He is also currently the honorary President of AZAPO while Strike Thokoane is the current President, this is not unusual in the Black Consciousness Movement as was the case with Steve Biko who was also the honorary President of the Black People's Convention in the early-1970s while Winfrey Kgware was the President. He was the Minister of Science and Technology.

Jafta Kgalabi Masemola, also known as The Tiger of Azania and Bra Jeff, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, teacher, and founder of the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). He spent 27 years in South African prison during the apartheid era in South Africa, and was released in October 1989, shortly before the legalization of the PAC and the African National Congress by F. W. de Klerk. He served the longest sentence of any political prisoner in Robben Island prison in South Africa.

Zachariah Keodirelang "ZK" Matthews was a prominent black academic in South Africa, lecturing at South African Native College, where many future leaders of the African continent were among his students.

Rahima Moosa was a member of the Transvaal Indian Congress and later the African National Congress. She is well known for the role she played in the national uprising of women on 9 August 1956. Moosa was also a shop steward for the Cape Town Food and Canning Workers Union.

Dikgang Ernest Moseneke is a South African judge and former Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa.

Thomas Titus Nkobi was a senior leader of the South African African National Congress (ANC) and a key figure in the Anti-Apartheid movement. Until his death he was the Treasurer General of the ANC and also its Member of Parliament.

Alfred Baphethuxolo Nzo was a South African politician. He served as the longest-standing secretary-general of the African National Congress. He occupied this position (ANC) between 1969 and 1991. He was also the South African minister of foreign affairs from 1994 to 1999. He was also the first black health inspector in the country. The Alfred Nzo Award is now awarded to deserving health practitioners in South Africa.

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator and writer. Plaatje was a founder member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which became the African National Congress (ANC). The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, is named after him, as is the Sol Plaatje University in that city, which opened its doors in 2014.

Mpilo Walter Benson Rubusana was the co-founder of the Xhosa language newspaper publication, Izwi Labantu, funded by Cecil John Rhodes, and the first Black person to be elected to the Cape Council (Parliament) in 1909. He also initiated the Native Education Association that contributed towards the formation of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in 1912 and later renamed the African National Congress in 1923.

Albert "Albie" Louis Sachs is a South African activist, lawyer, writer and a former judge appointed by Nelson Mandela to serve on the first Constitutional Court of South Africa. After twice being detained in South Africa for his anti-apartheid activities in the movement led by the African National Congress (ANC), in 1966 he went into exile in England. Later he lived in Mozambique, where on April 7, 1988 he was the victim of a car bombing executed by the South African security services. He lost his right arm and vision in one eye. In 1990 Sachs returned to South Africa to help write the Constitution of South Africa and later to serve for fifteen years on the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Pixley ka Isaka Seme was a South African lawyer and a founder and President of the African National Congress.

Archibald "Archie" Mncedisi Sibeko was a South African anti-apartheid activist, trade unionist and political leader.

Zola Sidney Themba Skweyiya was a South African politician who was Minister of Public Service and Administration from 1994 to 1999 and Minister of Social Development from 1999 to 2009. Skweyiya was re-elected to the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress in 2007.

Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe was a South African nurse who played an integral role in the Defiance Campaign. Her husband, Robert Sobukwe, was a prominent political dissident. Her family was constantly harassed by the police.

Abdullah Haron, also known as Imam Haron, was a South African Muslim cleric and anti-apartheid activist. He is best known for his anti-apartheid activism and subsequent death by the Security Branch of the apartheid-era South African Police Force in 1969.

John Tengo Jabavu was a political activist and the editor of South Africa's first newspaper to be written in Xhosa.

James Randolph Vigne FSA was a South African anti-apartheid activist. He was an influential member of the Liberal Party of South Africa, a founding member of the National Committee for Liberation, and the founder of the African Resistance Movement (ARM).