This article is based on our two narratives through which we explore how Freirean thought had an impact on our respective praxis as academic activists in apartheid South Africa. We reflect specifically on the influence the work of Freire had on informing and advancing our respective struggles against apartheid education. This article therefore emanates from our process of thoughtful dialoguing and writing about how our understandings of Freire enabled us to contribute to the South African struggle for liberation in our respective spaces. We discuss, as a starting point, our early engagements with Freirean literature during our separate journeys. We then reflect through our latter discussion on our combined efforts to design, develop and implement a large-scale Freirean-infused national literacy campaign in post-apartheid South Africa. These efforts were informed by our understandings of Freirean thought. The article aims to show the early and the continued relevance of Freire's work, during the struggle for liberation in South Africa in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It also shows how Freirean thought remained relevant in the early twenty-first century through, among other things, the implementation of adult literacy.