WINNIE MANDELA DIES AT 81:
Mrs. Mandela, hero of S. Africa’s struggle, dies
WINNIE Madikizela-Mandela, the South African activist who sustained the anti-apartheid battle while her husband, Nelson Mandela, was in jail — but who tarnished her legacy after a series of embarrassing legal troubles — has died. She was 81.
The Mandela family said in a statement Monday that Madikizela-Mandela had struggled with “a long illness” since the start of the year and “succumbed peacefully” at a hospital in Johannesburg.
Once known as “the mother of the nation,” Madikizela-Mandela was one of South Africa’s most well-known freedom fighters. During her husband’s 27 years in prison, Madikizela-Mandela played a critical role sharing his message with the world.
Her dedication to the antiapartheid cause frequently landed her in jail as well.
“Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was for many years a defining symbol of the struggle against apartheid. She refused to be bowed by the imprisonment of her husband, the perpetual harassment of her family by security force, detentions, bannings and banishment,” Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said in a statement.
“Her courageous defiance was deeply inspirational to me, and to generations of activists.”
She married Mandela in 1958, six years before he was sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. She campaigned relentlessly for Mandela’s release during his imprisonment, raised two daughters alone, faced harassment by South African security forces and served more than a year in prison, including time in solitary confinement, after being arrested by security police in 1969 in front of her children for violations of the Terrorism Act.
In 1977, she was banished to a remote town where neighbors were forbidden to speak to her. She was banned from meeting with more than one person at a time. The woman who returned to Johannesburg in 1985 was much harder, more ruthless and bellicose, branded by the cruelty of apartheid.
She experienced a fall from grace around the time of Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990, when she was implicated in the brutal behavior by her small army of enforcers dubbed the Mandela United Football Club.
She was convicted for her part in the kidnapping and assault of a suspected police informer — a 14-year-old boy — who was found with his throat cut. MadikizelaMandela was given a six-year sentence that was eventually reduced to a fine. By 1992, she and Nelson Mandela had separated.
They were married for 37 years. Their separation resulted in tawdry details in South African newspapers.
Madikizela-Mandela, along with Mandela’s second wife, Graça Machel, was at his bedside when he died in 2013 at the age of 95.
Columbia Law School Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw said sexism had resulted in Madikizela-Mandela’s reputation being unfairly marred, in contrast with male freedom fighters who were also flawed.
“It’s hard not to question whether the harsh verdict of Winnie Mandela is a reflection of discomfort with women warriors, or more broadly, with the militant ethos that ultimately became a foil for the popularized representation of Nelson Mandela as the open-armed father of a non-nation,” said Crenshaw.