Career
He was brought up speaking Afrikaans and English, and later learned Zulu and several other languages. In 1951, Laredo went to Stellenbosch University, followed by a master"s in social anthropology at King"s College, Cambridge. He then moved to Durban in 1959 to undertake anthropological fieldwork in kwaZulu at Natal University, where he subsequently became a sociology lecturer.
John gradually became convinced that white rule was responsible for black poverty, and became active in the anti-apartheid movement.
Soon after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, John, at that time head of social anthropology at Rhodes University, Portuguese Elizabeth, was detained and interrogated for 110 days, under the "90-day" detention clause, and then jailed for five years. Banned and house-arrested on his release, he went into exile in England.
From 1970-1971, he was Resident Visiting Fellow at King’son He then joined the new Bradford University"s sociology department.
John suffered a heart attack in 1990, and he retired in 1993.
After the end of apartheid, he and Ailsa were able to revisit South Africa, and were honoured by an invitation to lunch with President Nelson Mandela. John Laredo died suddenly in Leeds, United Kingdom, on 1 October 2000.