Albertina Sisulu

Albertina Sisulu
Sisulu in April 2007
Born	Nontsikelelo Thethiwe (1918-10-21)21 October 1918 Transkei, Union of South Africa
Died	2 June 2011 (2011-06-03) (aged 92) Johannesburg, South Africa
Known for	Anti-apartheid activist
Political party	African National Congress
Spouse	Walter Sisulu ​ ​ (m. 1944; died 2003)​
Children	Max Mlungisi Zwelakhe Lindiwe Beryl

Albertina Sisulu OMSG (née Nontsikelelo Thethiwe; 21 October 1918 – 2 June 2011) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, and the wife of fellow activist Walter Sisulu (1912–2003). She was affectionately known as "Ma Sisulu" throughout her lifetime by the South African public.

Early life

Born Nontsikelo Thethiwe in the Tsomo district of the Transkei on 21 October 1918, she was the second of five children of Bonilizwe and Monikazi Thethiwe. Sisulu's mother survived the Spanish Flu, but was constantly ill and very weak because of this. It fell upon Nontsikelelo, as the eldest girl, to take on a motherly role for her younger siblings. She had to stay out of school for long periods of time, which resulted in her being two years older than the rest of her class in her last year of primary school. She adopted the name Albertina when she started her schooling at a Presbyterian mission school.

In 1936, she left for Mariazell College in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape. The school's routine was rigid and strict: pupils were woken up at 4am to bath and clean their dormitories, and would then proceed to the chapel for morning prayers. Although her scholarship covered her board and lodging, she had to pay it back during the school holidays by ploughing the fields and working in the laundry room. Sisulu only went home during the December holidays.

When she finished school in 1939, she decided to become a nurse. She was accepted as a trainee nurse at a Johannesburg "Non-European" hospital called Johannesburg General. After spending Christmas with her family in Xolobe she left for Johannesburg in January 1940.

Education

After being orphaned as a teenager, she was obliged to help provide for her younger brothers and sisters. Abandoning her ambition to train as a teacher, she left the Transkei to train as a nurse at Johannesburg's General Hospital in 1940, as nurses were paid during training. She graduated from Mariazell College in 1939, and chose a career in nursing. Sisulu started work in Johannesburg as a midwife in 1946, often walking to visit patients in townships.

Political career

Sisulu did not display an interest in politics at first, only attending political meetings with Walter in a supporting capacity, but she eventually got involved in politics when she joined the African National Congress (ANC) Women's League in 1948, and took part in the launch of the Freedom Charter the same year. Sisulu was the only woman present at the birth of the ANC Youth League. She became a member of the executive of the Federation of South African Women in 1954.

On 9 August 1956, she joined Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn in a march of 20,000 women to the Union Buildings of Pretoria in protest against the apartheid government's requirement that women carry passbooks as part of the pass laws. "We said, 'nothing doing'. We are not going to carry passes and never will do so." The day is celebrated in South Africa as National Women's Day. She spent three weeks in jail before being acquitted on the pass charges, with Nelson Mandela as her lawyer. Sisulu opposed Bantu education, running schools from home.

Sisulu was arrested after her husband skipped jail to go underground in 1963, becoming the first woman to be arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963 enacted in May. The act gave the police the power to hold suspects in detention for 90 days without charging them. Sisulu was placed in solitary confinement for almost two months until 6 August.

She was subsequently in and out of jail for her political activities, but she continued to resist against apartheid, despite being banned for most of the 1960s. She was also a co-president of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the 1980s.

From 1984 until his murder in 1989, she worked for Soweto doctor, Abu Baker Asvat, who allowed her to continue with her political activities while employed by him, and she was present when he was murdered. Sisulu regarded her relationship as being that of a "mother and a son", and the two never allowed the rivalry between the UDF, and Azapo, of which Asvat was the Health Secretary, and a founding member, to interfere with their friendship or working relationship.

In 1989, she managed to obtain a passport and led a UDF delegation overseas, meeting British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and United States president George HW Bush. In London, she addressed a major anti-apartheid rally to protest against the visit of National Party leader FW de Klerk.

In 1994, she was elected to the first democratic Parliament, in which she served until retiring four years later. At the first meeting of this parliament, she had the honour of nominating Nelson Mandela as President of the Republic of South Africa. That year she received an award from then-president Mandela.

Community work

She recruited nurses to go to Tanzania, to replace British nurses who left after Tanzanian independence. The South African nurses had to be "smuggled" out of SA into Botswana and from there they flew to Tanzania.

Sisulu and her family were residents of Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa, when it was established.

Controversy

In 1997, she was called before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established to help South Africans confront and forgive their brutal history. Sisulu testified before the commission about the Mandela United Football Club, a gang linked to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, accused of terrorizing Soweto in the 1980s. She was accused of trying to protect Madikizela-Mandela during the hearings, but her testimony was stark.

She said she believed the Mandela United Football Club burned down her house because she pulled some of her young relatives out of the gang. She also testified about hearing the shot that killed her colleague, a Soweto doctor whose murder has been linked to the group. Sisulu, a nurse at the doctor's clinic, said they had a "mother and son" relationship.

Personal and family life

Albertina's wedding to Walter Sisulu in July 1944. Evelyn Mase is to the left of the groom, and Nelson Mandela is beside her on the far left. Anton Lembede is to the right of the bride. Walter's sister, Rosabella, looks out over the couple.

Sisulu met her husband, Walter, in 1941, and their families agreed on lobola the following year; they married on 15 July 1944 in a civil ceremony in Cofimvaba. Walter's best man was Nelson Mandela, and one of Albertina's bridesmaids was Mandela's first wife, Evelyn Mase; Mase was Walter's maternal cousin and had met Mandela at the Sisulus' home. During reception speeches by A. B. Xuma and Anton Lembede, Lembede warned Albertina that, "You are marrying a man who is already married to the nation". Sisulu later recalled, "I told her it was useless buying new furniture. I was going to be in jail."

The Sisulus' home in Orlando West, Soweto accommodated a rotation of young relatives, including Sisulu's younger siblings and five children of their own born between August 1945 and October 1957, and Sisulu raised them alone while Walter was on Robben Island between 1964 and 1989. In the early years of Walter's imprisonment, she spent her spare time sewing, knitting, and reselling eggs to raise money to cover her children's school tuition, determined that they should attend boarding school in neighbouring Swaziland rather than join the South African Bantu Education system. From their young adulthood onwards, the children were also periodically detained and banned by the apartheid police.

Sisulu was rarely able to travel to Cape Town to visit her husband on Robben Island, but Ruth First said of their marriage in 1982 that, "His capacity to lead and her political strength are... the product of a good marriage, a good political marriage, but a good marriage, one that is based on genuine equality and on shared commitment." Sisulu herself famously said, "We loved each other very much. We were like two chickens. One always walking behind the other."

Walter was released from prison in October 1989 as a prelude to the negotiations to end apartheid, but his health had deteriorated in prison. When Sisulu was nominated to stand for Parliament in 1994, Mandela suggested that she might decline the nomination in order to care for Walter, but her children were so incensed by the suggestion that Mandela called to apologise to them and rescind his advice. The couple lived in Orlando until after her retirement, when they moved to the Johannesburg suburb of Linden. Walter died at home on 5 May 2003 in Sisulu's presence. At his funeral, one of their granddaughters read a poem that she had written, titled, "Walter, what do I do without you?".

Max Sisulu served as the fourth post-apartheid Speaker of the National Assembly.

The Sisulus' children also went on to hold positions of influence in post-apartheid South Africa. Their biological children were Max (born August 1945), Mlungisi (born November 1948), Zwelakhe (born December 1950, during an ANC national conference), Lindiwe (born May 1954), and Nonkululeko (born October 1957). Max's wife, Elinor Sisulu, published a biography of her parents-in-law in 2002 entitled Walter and Albertina Sisulu: In Our Lifetime. The Sisulus also adopted Walter's sister's two children, Gerald and Beryl Lockman (born in December 1944 and March 1949 respectively), and raised the son of Walter's cousin, Jongumzi Sisulu (born 1958). At the time of her death, Sisulu had 26 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Although she had been brought up Catholic, she raised her children in the Anglican Church at the wishes of Walter's mother; by 1992, however, when asked whether she and Walter were still practising Christians, she replied, "There’s no time, my dear".

Death and funeral

Sisulu died unexpectedly at her home in Linden on 2 June 2011, aged 92. She was watching television when she had a coughing fit and lost consciousness; paramedics were not able to revive her.

President Jacob Zuma paid tribute to Sisulu in the wake of her death saying "Mama Sisulu has, over the decades, been a pillar of strength not only for the Sisulu family but also the entire liberation movement, as she reared, counselled, nursed and educated most of the leaders and founders of the democratic SA", Zuma said. He also announced that Sisulu would receive a state funeral, and that national flags would be flown half-mast from 4 June until the day of her burial.

Honours

A corner of Albertina Sisulu Road in the Johannesburg CBD

Albertina Sisulu Bridge in front of De Krook in Ghent, Belgium

The city of Reggio Emilia, Italy granted Sisulu honorary citizenship of the city in 1987, and in 1993 she was elected as president of the World Peace Council. After the end of apartheid, she was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of the Witwatersrand in 1999, the University of Cape Town in 2005, and the University of Johannesburg in 2007. On her 85th birthday in 2003, she was present at the unveiling of the Albertina Sisulu Centre, a community centre built by the City of Johannesburg in Orlando West to serve children and adults with special needs. In 2004 she was ranked 57th in SABC3's controversial Great South Africans poll, and in 2007 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Community Builder of the Year Awards, hosted by SABC, Old Mutual, and the Sowetan. She also received the Order for Meritorious Service.

In 2007, the Gauteng Provincial Government announced that it would rename the R21–R24 highway system between Pretoria and the O. R. Tambo International Airport as the Albertina Sisulu Freeway. In line with this decision, the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council resolved in 2008 to rename 18 municipal roads after Sisulu, thereby preserving the name change in the non-freeway sections of the R24 that pass through downtown Johannesburg. The renaming of the R24's freeway and non-freeway sections was completed in 2013. Outside of South Africa, the Albertina Sisulu Bridge, which crosses the Scheldt, was given its name by the City of Ghent, Belgium in 2014.

In 2018, the centenary of Sisulu's birth, the South African government held a number of further initiatives to honour Sisulu. As part of this programme, the South African Post Office launched a commemorative stamp, and a rare species of orchid, brachycorythis conica subsp. transvaalensis, was renamed the Albertina Sisulu Orchid during a ceremony at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden. The national government hosted the Albertina Sisulu Women's Dialogue in Johannesburg, and UNICEF co-hosted another Albertina Sisulu Dialogue in Durban during that year's National Women's Month, In 2021, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation launched the Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu Science Centre, a green technology science centre in Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape.

External links

• Albertina Sisulu history