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in African nationalist publications as a In the 1960s, everything changed. In
contribution to the struggle; to activist April 1960, the government banned the
men, a pioneering social worker was a ANC and other liberation movements,
catch. Soon after she began work, her after a massive new wave of protests
nurse roommate married ANC activist and unprecedented police violence.
Oliver Tambo, partner in South Africa’s Leading activists either went into exile,
first black-run law firm, Mandela and or went underground: law partners
Tambo. In 1957, Winnie began dating Tambo and Mandela exemplified these
Nelson. This was not an easy match: strategies, as Tambo moved to London
nearly forty years old, Mandela was to lead the ANC’s global campaigns
going through both a divorce and a trial and Mandela traveled the country
for treason, due to his leadership of the undercover, disguised as a chauffeur
ANC’s recent campaigns of non-violent for a white communist comrade. In
mass resistance. But the politically- December 1961, the ANC—previously
Winnie Mandela in exile in Brandfort, South engaged young Winnie quickly became committed to non-violence—launched
Africa, in 1977 (Photo Credit: Pictorial Press engaged to Nelson, and they married the armed wing MK, which began to
Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo). soon after his divorce was final, their bomb power plants and government
bridal car covered in ANC regalia. buildings. Mandela, a key architect
Women were the core of resistance.
They suffered arrests and detention As the treason trials of Mandela and of MK, again faced trial, and now he
in the Women’s Jail in Johannesburg
and Pretoria Central Prison. Leading
women activists, like their male “The freedom of this country
counterparts, were “banned,” mean-
ing that it was illegal for them to speak was attained by the masses of
in public or attend meetings. They
were confined to house arrest and this country… It was attained
exiled—forced to leave the country,
or forcibly removed to remote rural by women who were left to
areas. Examining women’s activism
brings into clearer focus apartheid’s fend for their families… We are
violence toward families: as my research
explores, women tended to root their the ones who fought the enemy
political commitment in their commit- physically, who went out to face
ments as mothers and wives.
their bullets.”
Madikizela-Mandela’s political
coming-of-age epitomized how
anti-apartheid activism was a family
project. She was initially politicized by
her family, Mpondo royalty who had other ANC leaders stretched on, was convicted of plotting revolution.
fought against colonial expropriation of Madikizela-Mandela became a more In 1964, he went to Robben Island.
their family lands long before apartheid. serious acti vist, as journalist Emma He would not be released from prison
With the support of her schoolteacher Gilbey described in her 1994 biogra- until 1990.
parents, she launched a career devoted phy, The Lady: Life and Times of Winnie
to black families: in 1956, in her early Mandela. In 1958, five months preg- During Mandela’s long imprisonment,
twenties, she became the first black nant, she was jailed at an anti-pass law his words and image were banned in
social worker at Baragwanath Hospital protest, losing her job at the hospital. South Africa. His wife, and in time
in Soweto, the vast black township Despite this repression, the Mandelas their two daughters, spoke for him,
outside of Johannesburg. Black women built a home in Soweto. Mandela demanding the liberation of politi-
teachers and health professionals were was acquitted of treason, as the state cal prisoners and the end of apartheid.
highly respected, their work celebrated could not prove that the ANC was Their home in Soweto became a cell
plotting violence.

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