Born: September 26, 1936, Bizana, Pondoland district, Transkei [now in Eastern Cape], South Africa
Winnie Mandela is a South African political activist, known for advocating militant resistance to apartheid, a policy of rigid racial segregation legally enforced in South Africa until 1991. Originally named Nomzamo Madikizela, she was born in Bizana, in what is now the province of Eastern Cape, and received the name Winifred when she was baptized. She was educated in Johannesburg as a medical social worker. In 1958, she married Nelson Mandela, a lawyer who was deeply involved with the African National Congress (ANC), an antiapartheid organization that was banned in 1960. When he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, she continued his work. She herself was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement from 1969 to 1970. In 1976, Mandela was declared a banned person and was ordered to restrict her movements, but she defied these orders.
Mandela was implicated in 1988 when the members of the Mandela United Football Club (who served as her bodyguards) beat four young black men, one of whom died in the Mandela home. In 1991, she was convicted of kidnapping and assaulting in relation to the incident and sentenced to six years in prison. Mandela appealed the convictions. In 1992, after new evidence had surfaced regarding these and other charges, Mandela resigned her position as head of the ANC’s social welfare department. In addition, she was stripped of a regional position in the ANC’s Women’s League and gave up her seat on the ANC’s National Executive Committee. In 1993, Mandela successfully appealed the assault charge, but her kidnapping conviction was upheld. The court, however, waived her prison term and instead ordered her to pay fines. In December 1993, despite her criminal conviction and her public criticisms of ANC leadership, Mandela was elected president of the ANC’s Women’s League.
In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison after the ban on the ANC was lifted. In April 1992, he announced that he and his wife were separating. After Mandela was elected president of South Africa in the country’s first multi-racial elections in 1994, he appointed Winnie Mandela deputy minister of arts, culture, science and technology. She held this post until April 1995, when she was fired due to ongoing conflicts with Mandela and his administration. The Mandelas were divorced in March 1996. After the divorce, she re-adopted her maiden name and is commonly known as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
