Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, until his death while in police custody. A student leader who went on to found the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) which empowered and mobilized much of South Africa's urban black population, he died in police custody and has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While he was alive, his writings and activism had the goal of empowering black people. He was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful," which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being." Biko was never a member of the African National Congress (ANC), but the ANC nonetheless included him in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going so far as to use his image in campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994. Nelson Mandela said of Biko: "They had to kill him to prolong the life of apartheid."