Albertina Sisulu - Political Career

Political Career

Albertina 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 1955, and took part in the launch of the Freedom Charter the same year. Albertina Sisulu was the only woman present at the birth of the ANC Youth League. Albertina became a member of the executive of the Federation of South African Women in 1954. On 9 August 1956, Albertina 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." She spent three weeks in jail before being acquitted on pass charges, with Nelson Mandela as her lawyer. Sisulu opposed Bantu education, running schools from home.

Albertina was arrested after her husband skipped bail 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. Albertina 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 key member of the United Democratic Front in the 1980s.

In 1986 she received the honourary citizenship of Reggio nell′Emilia (Italy), the first world's town that assigned this important award to Albertina Sisulu.

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, 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.