Sisulu was the family name of two prominent Black political leaders of South Africa. They were Walter Sisulu (1912-2003) and his wife, Albertina Sisulu (1918-2011). Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was born on May 18, 1912, in Transkei and died on May 5, 2003, in Johannesburg. Nontsikelelo Albertina Sisulu was born on Oct. 21, 1918, in Transkei and died on June 2, 2011, in Johannesburg.
Walter Sisulu
joined the African National Congress (ANC), the main political voice for Black people in South Africa, in 1940 (see African National Congress (ANC)). He was a founding member and treasurer of the ANC Youth League. In 1949, he became ANC secretary-general. He was banned from political activity in 1952 and imprisoned by the government eight times between 1954 and 1964. As a leader of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), he received a life sentence at the Rivonia trials in 1964 for revolutionary activities. He was released in 1989. Sisulu was elected deputy president of the ANC in July 1991. He served in that position until 1994, when South Africa’s first democratic elections were held.
Albertina Sisulu
was also an active member of the ANC. She was a founding member of the Federation of South African Women, a multiracial body established in 1954 to organize a united struggle against apartheid. She was banned from political activity between 1964 and 1982. She served as a member of the South African Parliament from 1994 to 1999.
