Joe Slovo (23 May 1926 – 6 January 1995, full name Yossel Mashel Slovo) was a South African politician, an opponent of the apartheid system. He was a long-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC's military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe.A white South African citizen of Jewish Lithuanian family, Slovo was a delegate to the multiracial Congress of the People of June 1955 which drew up the Freedom Charter.