Winnie Mandela biography

Synopsis

Early Career: Social Work

Born Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela on September 26, 1936, in Bizana, a rural village in the Transkei district of South Africa, Winnie Mandela eventually moved to Johannesburg in 1953 to study at the Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work. South Africa was under the system known as apartheid, where citizens of indigenous African descent were subjected to a harsh caste system in which European descendants enjoyed much higher levels of wealth, health and social freedom.

Winnie completed her studies and, though receiving a scholarship to study in America, decided instead to work as the first black medical social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg. A dedicated professional, she came to learn via her field work of the deplorable state that many of her patients lived in.

In the mid-1950s, Winnie met attorney Nelson Mandela, who, at the time, was leader of the African National Congress, an organization with the goal of ending South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation. The two married in June 1958, despite concerns from Winnie's father over the couple's age difference and Mandela's steadfast political involvements. After the wedding, Winnie moved into Mandela's home in Soweto. She became legally known thereafter as Winnie Madikizela-Mandel.

Confinement and Leadership

Nelson Mandela was routinely arrested for his activities and targeted by the government during his early days of marriage. He was eventually sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment, leaving Winnie Mandela to raise their two small daughters, Zenani and Zindzi, single-handedly. Nonetheless, Winnie vowed to continue working to end apartheid; she was involved surreptitiously with the ANC and sent her children to boarding school in Swaziland to offer them a more peaceful upbringing.

Monitored by the government, Winnie Mandela was arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act and spent more than a year in solitary confinement, where she was tortured. Upon her release, she continued her activism and was jailed several more times. Then after the Soweto 1976 uprisings where hundreds of students were killed, she was forced by the government to relocate to the border town of Brandfort in 1977 and placed under house arrest. She described the experience as alienating and heart-wrenching, yet she continued to speak out, as in a 1981 statement to the BBC on black South African economic might and its ability to overturn the system.

In 1985, after her home was firebombed, Winnie returned to Soweto and continued to agitate against the regime even during government media bans. Her actions continued to cement the title bestowed upon her, "Mother of the Nation." But Winnie also became known for endorsing deadly retaliation against black citizens who collaborated with the apartheid regime.