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IRD Salutes Mama Winnie Mandela 

Mother of Free South Africa

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Born: September 26, 1936, Bizana, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Died: April 2, 2018, Milpark Hospital, Johannesburg, South Africa

 

During her visit to Jamaica in 1992 with her husband Nelson, Winnie Mandela spoke to a group of Jamaican women about Reggae music's power through the works of Marley, Tosh, Cliff and others, to inspire South Africa's people in the face of the oppressive Apartheid regime. 

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She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".

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Born to a Mpondo family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial; she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose to prominence within the domestic anti-apartheid movement. She was detained by apartheid state security services on various occasions, tortured subjected to banning orders, banished to a rural town, and spent several months in solitary confinement.

 

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