Walter Sisulu

Family and education

Sisulu was born in Ngcobo in the Union of South Africa. His mother, Alice Mase Sisulu, was a Xhosa domestic worker and his father, Albert Victor Dickenson, was white. Dickenson worked in the Railway Department of the Cape Colony from 1903 to 1909 and was transferred to the Office of the Chief Magistrate in Umtata in 1910. His mother was related to Evelyn Mase, Nelson Mandela's first wife. Dickenson did not play a part in his son's upbringing, and the boy and his sister, Rosabella, were raised by his mother's family, who were descended from the Thembu clan.

Educated in a local missionary school, he left in 1926 to find work. He moved to Johannesburg in 1928 and did a wide range of manual jobs.

He founded Sitha Investments in 1939. It was situated at Barclay Arcade between West Street and Commissioner Street in the business district of Johannesburg. Its objective is to help blacks and Indians to buy houses in Apartheid South Africa. During its operations, Sitha was the only black-owned estate agency in South Africa.

He married Albertina in 1944; Nelson Mandela was his best man at their wedding. The couple had five children, and adopted four more. Sisulu's wife and children were also active in the struggle against Apartheid.

His son Zwelakhe Sisulu became a journalist and union leader, went on to found the New Nation (at the time South Africa's largest black newspaper), served as Nelson Mandela's press secretary, became CEO of the South African Broadcast Corporation, and later a business person.

An adopted daughter, Beryl Rose Sisulu, served as ambassador from the Republic of South Africa to Norway.

ANC activism

He joined the ANC in 1941. In 1943, together with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, he joined the ANC Youth League, founded by Anton Lembede, of which he was initially the treasurer. He later distanced himself from Lembede after Lembede, who died in 1947, had ridiculed his parentage (Sisulu was the son of a white foreman). Sisulu was a political networker and had a prominent planning role in the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"). He was made secretary general of the ANC in 1949, displacing the more passive older leadership, and held that post until 1954. He also joined the South African Communist Party.

As a planner of the Defiance Campaign from 1952, he was arrested that year and given a suspended sentence. In 1953, he travelled to Europe, the USSR, Palestine, and China as an ANC representative. Over the following decade, he was imprisoned seven times, including a five-month period in 1960, and placed under house arrest in 1962. During the Treason Trial (1956–1961), he received a six-year sentence, but was released on bail while awaiting appeal. In 1963, he chose to go into hiding, which led to his wife becoming the first woman to be arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963, also known as the "90-day clause." He was caught at Rivonia on 11 July, along with 16 others. At the conclusion of the Rivonia Trial (1963–1964), he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. With other senior ANC figures, he served the majority of his sentence on Robben Island.

In October 1989, he was released after 26 years in prison, and in July 1991 was elected ANC deputy president at the ANC's first national conference after its unbanning the year before. He remained in the position until after South Africa's first democratic election in 1994.

Awards

In 1992, Walter Sisulu was awarded Isitwalandwe Seaparankoe, the highest honour granted by the ANC, for his contribution to the liberation struggle in South Africa. The government of India awarded him Padma Vibhushan in 1998. Walter Sisulu was given a "special official funeral" on 17 May 2003. In 2004 he was voted 33rd in the SABC3's Great South Africans.

The Walter Sisulu National Botanic Garden, Walter Sisulu University and Walter Sisulu Local Municipality are named after him.