Francis Daniels: A Tribute To Albertina Sisulu

Francis Daniels is a portfolio manager for The Africa Opportunity Fund and a resident of Johannesburg.

I was saddened by the news that Albertina Sisulu, one of the great leaders of the African National Congress had died at the age of 92. She was the widow of Walter Sisulu, the first secretary general of the ANC, a Robben Island prisoner and colleague of Nelson Mandela. She was a retired nurse and midwife.

She had made extraordinary personal sacrifices so that the ordinary African could lead a dignified life, free of the daily discriminations and humiliations that constituted the Apartheid System. She endured a lot so that each person, regardless of race, creed or gender, could enjoy the full range of pleasures and sorrows, challenges and accomplishments that define the daily essence of an ordinary person. Best of all, she and her late husband epitomized the proposition that a decent married couple, seeking the best for their children, could also be committed activists for a just South Africa.

The outline of her life is well known. She was born in 1918 in the village of Camama in the Transkei region of South Africa. An excellent student, she chose to study nursing in the 1940s because trainee nurses were paid during their studies, allowing her to save money to send home to her family. She married Walter Sisulu in 1947.

Albertina Sisulu was the only woman present at the birth of the ANC Youth League. Soon, the first of numerous extraordinary sacrifices was to occur. Her husband elected to surrender his paying job to become the full-time secretary general of the ANC, leaving her to support her growing family on a nurse’s income. She became more of an activist, leading the ANC Women’s League in the famous 1952 Defiance Campaign and the boycotts, protests and sit-ins of the 1950s....