A biographical study of Andimba Toivo ya Toivo (1924 - 2017), a central figure in the Namibian freedom struggle. An activist from the early 1950s, he helped found the independence movement, the South West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO, which challenged South African rule through protest and guerrilla warfare. In 1968, after being convicted of violating a South African terrorism law, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on Robben Island, where he would survive torture and solitary confinement. Released in 1984, he went into exile in Lusaka, and was subsequently elected SWAPO Secretary General. When Namibia gained independence in 1990 he became a member of the National Assembly, and settled for the post of Minister of Mines and Energy.