OR TAMBO WAS BORN

South Africa’s Oliver Reginald Kaizana (OR) Tambo was born on this day in 1917. The lawyer, anti-apartheid revolutionary and co-founder of the ANC Youth League, was born in Nkantolo, Bizana, in the Eastern Cape.

He attended a school at Holy Cross Mission in April 1928 and then transferred to St Peter’s in Joburg.

Tambo graduated in 1938 as one of the top pupils.

He was admitted to the University of Fort Hare, but in 1940 he, along with several others including Nelson Mandela, was expelled for participating in a student strike.

Tambo, Mandela and Walter Sisulu were the founding members of the

ANC Youth League in 1943, with Tambo becoming its first national secretary and a member of the national executive committee in 1948.

In 1955, Tambo became secretary general of the ANC after Sisulu was banned by the government under the Suppression of Communism Act.

In 1958, he became deputy president of the ANC and in 1959 was served with a five-year banning order by the government.

He was sent abroad by the ANC to mobilise opposition to apartheid and settled with his family in Muswell Hill, north London, where he lived until 1990.

In 1967, Tambo became acting president of the ANC, following the death of Chief Albert Luthuli. He returned to South Africa on 13 December 13 1990 after over 30 years in exile and died on 24 April 1993, aged 75, due to complications from a stroke.