We honour one of the plaintiffs in Khulumani's lawsuit in New York, the late Professor Dennis Brutus. Find below tributes to Comrade Dennis Brutus that were presented to his memorial in Cape Town in January 2010:

Tony Brutus (son):

How do you do? Aangenaame kennis, my naam is Dennis. A phrase with a ring to it, and a sense to it-

Dennis was ready to meet the world, polite, respectful and clear minded. In the living room of our Shell Street home in Port Elizabeth, he would greet neighbours and fellows from near and far. And in fact, the names of Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, MN Pather, Lutchie Lutchman, Luthuli, were household names for me growing up. An engaging man.

According to his sisters, Dennis was an extrovert and very early on, it is clear, he was a man with a mission, ready to take on the world.

The measure of the man can be found in the treasure of rich ideas, lyrical poetry and breadth of achievement over many walks of life. He took pleasure of mooching down to the Port Elizabeth docks to greet and befriend foreign sailors arriving from far and stranded without a knowledge of the town - and he was rewarded with a unique and broad collection of jazz records and wonderful East German cameras. He could tell you a story about that.

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The legacy of a legend is the inspiration he provided. People from many different walks of life encountered him when they were searching for focus and purpose - Dennis was a intellectual guide, a pilot light assisting other souls with unfailing insight. Arthur Nortje, Vaughn Fayle, Charles Abrahams are among immensely talented young people who have with his nudging, achieved magnificent accomplishments.

The power of his story telling and his prophetic vision surrounds us at the turn of the year: this year's big event - a Fifa football spectacle the likes of which the continent has never seen - the story Dennis tells has this twist: will the trick of the trickle down effect wash away or divided history? Or will it be a washout of elite corporate entertaining leaving the local people complaining about empty promises, empty stadiums, stars in the eyes and nothing in their pockets: we'll see just now if Dennis gut feeling was unfailing.

Youth:

Leaving home going out to the world he said to his Mum: " they won't like what I'm going to do...nevertheless I have to do what is right" He could have meant his family, he certainly meant his compatriots.

By example that soul force will defeat police cordons: pen in hand, clear of his conviction, he use his charm and courtesy, and ability to spin a story as a formidable weapon.

Anyone of my brothers or sisters can tell you, that at St Patrick's Catholic Church in Sydenam there were only white alter boys. Dennis changed that. Usually on the way there on a Sunday, we walked through a park where the slides and swings had the all too familiar "For whites only sign". Go ahead and play on them, he used to say. And when people or the park attendants approached us to object - he calmly, without anger, stood up to them and defied them. It wasn't fun, and the lesson Dennis had for us was that you can make change: fly as straight as an arrow to your goal.

There is too much of an attitude of "what can I get? Rather than how can I serve?" these days. Back in Port Elizabeth at the time Americans were in the awakenings and uprisings of the Civil Rights movement, a letter
would arrive in the post from Robert Kennedy, at the time Attorney General or some such, replying to a persistent and principled enquiry from Dennis.

And that links to now, look at what we have now - you should know our Minister of Justice Mr. Jeff Radebe has, on behalf of the South African government shifted their position to support the case for reparations - and the case is moving forward, with Dennis as a litigant: way ahead of everyone, but he told, no intention of personal gain.

About unanswered questions. In the last World Cup final, what did the player who incited Zinadine Zidane actually say? And all sorts of possibilities have been suggested. What could I say to sum up the meaning of my father, what would he actually say to advise me? And it is this, don't fear to tell the truth about me. Lies are chains. I have
looked for and stood for the truth.

And this location, this slave lodge will have heard the shouts and shrieks of pain, the whip the lash and sjambok were used around this place and these spaces. People crowded and sick and dying for lack of dignity, the right to decency. We are the descendents of slaves, though I haven't exactly traced the precise roots. Our ancestors rebelled, and Dennis would recall the uprisings that took place around the Cape against injustice and oppression, as they take place everywhere around the world.

Dennis and the written word. Letters of protest to the governing elites, that plainly and simply demanded that people act according to their words and their constitutions. Brief updates of news or filtered, coded messages slipped under doors in prison cells on Robben Island where Dennis mooched along with a mop, washing the floors. Open letters to the editors of newspapers. Petitions to the courts: a rare and remarkable intelligence and gift of reading and writing to back up the singular purpose he had chosen: to live with integrity and to defy injustice and
oppression.

Dennis and meetings, an early memory of a rally - the names Chief Albert Luthuli, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki were always in the air; and the funerals of struggle activists: meetings and funerals were much the same thing.

We were not very much in touch with each other in recent years, but then that changed and it is a credit that Dennis could put aside the differences between us and say that he would spend some months with us as his candle started to flicker. Eighty five years is a decent span.

Hamba Kahle Dennis!