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Today's Google Doodle celebrates renowned anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko’s 70th Birthday.

Biko was a strong opponent of South Africa's apartheid policies and fought against them at the height of the movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

He was born on December 18 1946 in Ginsberg Township in what is today South Africa's Eastern Cape province.

While in medical school, Biko co-founded the Black Consciousness Movement, which encouraged black people to take pride in their racial identities and cultural heritages.

He was famously quoted as saying: “Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time.”

His views were ignored by the pro-apartheid government, and in February of 1973, he was banned from any activism activities on the subject.

During this time he wasn't allowed to speak to more than one person at a time, was forbidden to speak in public and to the media, and was forced to stay in a single district.

In spite of this, Biko continued to form grassroots organizations and organise protests, including the Soweto Uprising in June of 1976.

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Biko died in custody in September 1977, aged just 30, after being brutally beaten by police.

His lover Mamphela Ramphele, who was 29 at the time was five months pregnant at time and was left sick with grief.

She had helped him set up the Black Consciousness Movement and pledged to continue the fight to end South Africa’s racial segregation.

(Image: Getty Images)

Biko was viciously attacked by police before being manacled naked on an 800-mile drive to a Pretoria prison hospital where he died of a brain haemorrhage.

Months later the inquest concluded that no one was to blame for Biko’s death. This ruling caused revulsion around the world and Biko became a global icon.

Singer Peter Gabriel dedicated his song Biko to him in 1980 and, in 1987, Hollywood A-list star Denzel Washington played him in the film Cry Freedom.

(Image: Getty Images)

Biko's work has contributed to a huge change in the way black people are treated in the country, but many feel there is still a long way to go.

Black people make up 80 percent of South Africa's 54 million population yet most of the economy remains in the hands of white people, who account for about 8 percent of the population.

A Google spokesman said: "On the 70th anniversary of Biko’s birth, we remember his courage and the important legacy he left behind.

The Doodle will be available in Belarus, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States