Walter Sisulu

An Apartheid era sign

The English and Dutch colonized South Africa in the seventeenth century. Around 1900, when diamonds were discovered, the English invaded, sparking the Boer War. Until around 1940 the two groups held sway, then Afrikaner National Party gain strong majority. The National Party instituted apartheid, a racial segregation involving political and legal discrimination against a group of people. Apartheid was used to carry on white authority while still maintaining racial segregation. In the 60’s the “Grand Apartheid” Plan took action. After it was executed it emphasized the territorial separation and police repression against non-whites in South Africa.

The race laws affected all aspects of Black life. That included the restriction of legal marriage between whites and non-whites, and the creation of “white-only” occupations. Because of Population Registration Act of 1950, every South African were required to be classified in one of these three groups: White, Black (Africans), or Coloured (mixed race). They were categorized by their appearance, social standing, and ancestry. A white citizen for instance was generally defined as, “appearance obviously of a white person or generally accepted as White”. These loose terms of what constituted a race led to confusion, and sometimes members of the same family becoming listed as different races.

Walter Sisulu was born in the village of Qutubeni in the Engcobo district of the Transkei in the May of 1912. His father was a white assistant magistrate, his mother a black domestic worker. As his father never fully acknowledged Walter as his child, he was raised by his mother and her family. Dropping out of school at age fifteen to help support his family, Sisulu worked several odd jobs. He became an active trade unionist, and was fired from a job at a bakery for organizing a strike for higher wages.

Sisulu working for the ANC

In 1940, at age twenty-eight, he joined the African National conference. He was arrested several times throughout the years for his involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. On 12 June 1964 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning acts of sabotage. Twenty-five years later, in 1989, he was released. After his release from prison he was elected to the position of deputy president of the ANC in 1991. Sisulu retired from his position as deputy president in 1994, after South Africa’s first democratic election. Walter Sisulu had five children and a wife Albertina, whom he married in 1944. In 2003 Sisulu passed away in his home after a long illness.

Walter Sisulu was part of many groups that fought against Apartheid. He partnered up with a two black men named Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. They were in partnered up in quite a few groups with each other. Walter first joined in a group called the ANC. He was a big brother figure and helped out younger men who wanted to start branches of the ANC in big cities. On December 17th the ANC group Walter was a part of started a project called ‘Program of action’. The program was supposed to give the South Africans full citizenship and basically grant them all their rights.

Walter Sisulu later in his life

Walter was involved in boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and noncooperation. Long before this, Walter had an estate agency business but he closed it so he could be a full-time ANC party organizer. The ANC told the government to revoke all unjust laws or the government would be facing a 'Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws’. On April 6th and June 26th, a bunch of supporters started massive rallies and strikes. When that all happened the government retaliated against the rallies by banning newspapers and campaigns that supported anti-apartheid activism. 8,500 people were arrested including Sisulu. He was arrested for statutory communist and was sentenced to 9 months in jail.

Citations:

"The History of Apartheid in South Africa." The History of Apartheid in South Africa. 23 Feb. n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. .

"Walter Sisulu ." moreorless : heroes & killers of the 20th century Search . 26 Dec. 2006. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. .

"Anti-Apartheid Leader Walter Sisulu Dies at the Age of 90." Democracy Now!. 30 May 2003. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. .