Statecraft & Independence
Landmark
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
1936 – 2018
The face of resistance inside the country while Mandela was in prison
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
For twenty-seven years she was the struggle's public face inside South Africa, under banning, exile and detention, and she never stopped being a contested figure.
Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela was born in Bizana in Pondoland and became the first qualified Black medical social worker in South Africa, working at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, where her own research on infant mortality told her what the system was doing. She married Nelson Mandela in 1958. They had about four years together before he went underground, and he was in prison from 1962 until 1990.
What she did with the next twenty-seven years is why she is here. The state banned her, which meant she could not be in a room with more than one person, could not be quoted, and could not leave her magisterial district. It detained her for seventeen months in 1969, most of it in solitary confinement in Pretoria Central, where she was tortured and after which she said she was never the same. It banished her in 1977 to Brandfort, a Free State township where nobody spoke Xhosa and she had no running water, and kept her there for eight years. She built a clinic and a crèche there anyway, and the international press came to her.
She would not be silenced and she would not leave. Through the 1970s and 1980s, with the ANC banned and its leadership in prison or exile, she was the movement's visible presence inside the country — at funerals, in the townships, in front of cameras — and she kept Mandela's name alive at a time when it was a criminal offence to print it. The Mother of the Nation was not a title anyone awarded her; it was what people called her.
After 1990 she was elected an MP, led the ANC Women's League, and stayed in parliament until her death in 2018, consistently to the left of her party and consistently unwilling to soften. Her marriage ended in 1996.
What she did with the next twenty-seven years is why she is here. The state banned her, which meant she could not be in a room with more than one person, could not be quoted, and could not leave her magisterial district. It detained her for seventeen months in 1969, most of it in solitary confinement in Pretoria Central, where she was tortured and after which she said she was never the same. It banished her in 1977 to Brandfort, a Free State township where nobody spoke Xhosa and she had no running water, and kept her there for eight years. She built a clinic and a crèche there anyway, and the international press came to her.
She would not be silenced and she would not leave. Through the 1970s and 1980s, with the ANC banned and its leadership in prison or exile, she was the movement's visible presence inside the country — at funerals, in the townships, in front of cameras — and she kept Mandela's name alive at a time when it was a criminal offence to print it. The Mother of the Nation was not a title anyone awarded her; it was what people called her.
After 1990 she was elected an MP, led the ANC Women's League, and stayed in parliament until her death in 2018, consistently to the left of her party and consistently unwilling to soften. Her marriage ended in 1996.
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.