Eleanor Logan worked in a bookstore in Durban in the early 1960s. She and Ronnie Kasrils were persuaded to campaign against apartheid in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, as members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1961, she helped Kasrils and others steal dynamite from a work site in Durban. She helped Ronnie Kasrils escape house arrest in 1963, and assisted banished and underground activists, as a driver, courier, and fundraiser.[4]
In 1963, Kasrils was detained at Durban Central Prison under the 90 Day Act, and was admitted to the mental hospital at Fort Napier after a hunger strike and a feigned breakdown; she escaped from Fort Napier, at times in disguise as a boy, or passing as a nurse with forged identification, and joined Ronnie Kasrils in Johannesburg.[2] From there, the Kasrils escaped to Bechuanaland (Botswana), again in disguise, and were granted political asylum.[1] They soon moved again, to Tanzania, and eventually to the United Kingdom.[4]
She was an assistant to Oliver Tambo who was the ANC President.[5] She recruited the casting director Susie Figgis to support the cause.[6]
In 1979, she served on the International Year of the Child committee of the African National Congress in London. She worked at the London College of Fashion as an administrator, and remained active on behalf of the ANC in England and Scotland until 1993, when she returned to South Africa with her husband and son. The Kasrils were granted amnesty in 2001.[4] Her husband became South Africa's Minister of Intelligence Services in 2004.[7]
