Mbeki began to write a study of the workings of apartheid policy in the reserves - the areas set aside in law for African occupation - as early as 1959 and 1960.

In 2005 the South African Ministry of the Environment launched an environmental patrol vessel named the Ruth First in her honor. Another daughter writer Gillian Slovo publiRuth Firstd her memoir Every Secret Thing: My Family My Country in 1997 which is an account of her childhood in South Africa and her relationship with her activist parents.  
First Ruth; Segal R (1967).

Ruth First (4 May 1925 – 17 August 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar born in Johannesburg South Africa.