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History


Chief Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli was president of the African National Congress from 1952 until his death in 1967. He was born in Solusi Mission, near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in 1898 – the son of translator and Seventh Day Adventist mission worker, John Bunyan Luthuli and his wife Mtonya.

His father died shortly after his birth and in 1908 the family returned to their ancestral home in Groutville, KwaDukuza (Stanger) on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. He started his school career at a nearby Mission School and went on to study at the Ohlange institute which was founded by Dr John Dube, the first president of the South African National Native Congress or (SANNC) as the ANC was then called. He went on to do a two year teacher training course at a Methodist institution in Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg and later accepted his first post running a small school at Blaauwbosch in the Midlands. He then trained further at Adams College and on completion of his studies was offered a bursary from Fort Hare University. He decided instead to continue teaching. Thereafter he was appointed to the staff at Adams College specialising in isiZulu and Music.

In 1927 Albert Luthuli married Nokukhanya Bhengu, granddaughter of the Zulu Chief Dhlokolo of the Ngcolosi. Between the years 1929 and 1945 they had seven children.

In 1928 he was elected secretary of the African Teachers Association, a position he held until 1933, when he became president of the same body, founding the Zulu Language and Cultural Society as its auxiliary.

Luthuli returned to Groutville in 1936 to take up a position of chief to which he had been elected by the ‘Abasemakholweni’ people.

He joined the African National Congress in 1945 and the next year, was elected to the Native Representative Council - an advisory body that was later disbanded.

In 1951 his position as president of the Natal branch of the ANC put him on a path of conflict with his government sanctioned role as tribal chief. His public support for the Defiance Campaign of 1952, a non-violent protest against the repressive Pass laws, then brought him into conflict with the state. He was then deposed as a chief and in response to this issued a public statement called ‘the Road to Freedom is Via the Cross’.

In December 1952 he was elected president general of the ANC and together with the then provincial president for the ANC in Transvaal Nelson Mandela and nearly 100 others, faced a government banning order. In 1956 Luthuli - along with 145 others ANC leaders  - was arrested on a charge of high treason. He was released in the early stages of the trial and though the repeated banning orders were causing operational difficulties for the ANC leadership, Luthuli was re-elected as president general in 1955 and then again in 1958. It was a position he held until his untimely death in 1967.

In response to the shooting of peaceful demonstrators on 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville, Luthuli publically burnt his pass book and called on South Africans to observe a national day of mourning. He was detained and given a suspended sentence and then released.
He was further confined to a smaller area of his home under the Suppression of Communism Act and banned from receiving visitors, issuing statements and attending church services.

In 1961, for his outstanding efforts to secure political freedom in apartheid South Africa, Chief Luthuli received the 1960 Nobel Prize for Peace. Facing mounting pressure nationally and internationally, the South African government permitted Luthuli to travel to Norway to receive his award.

A year later he was not however allowed to travel to the United Kingdom when he was appointed honourary rector of the University of Glasgow. In the same year, his autobiography ‘Let My People Go’ was published.

Recognition of Luthuli’s stature as an international icon in the fight for human dignity attracted many luminaries to his home among whom was US Senator Robert Kennedy who paid him an unofficial visit in 1966.

Chief Luthuli led the ANC until 21 July 1967 when while out on a walk near his home he was reportedly struck by a train and killed. At the time of his death he was still under a restriction order.

His life, work and philosophy remained an enduring legacy to South Africa and the world.