Mandela, Winnie (1936–)

Winnie Mandela, often referred to as a woman warrior and sometimes the Mother of the Nation (South Africa), was an anchor of the anti-apartheid movement, keeper of Nelson Mandela's name, and a tireless worker to bring social justice and freedom to blacks in South Africa. As the spouse of Nelson Mandela, a freedom fighter jailed for 27 years, she not only upheld his name and his work, she never stopped trying to get him released from prison. Shortly after his release from prison, he became the first democratically elected black president of South Africa.

Winnie Mandela was born Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela (Winnie) on September 26, 1936, in Bizana, Transkei. Her family was comfortable, and her parents believed in the power of education. She was well educated, earning a degree in social work from Jan Hofmeyer School in Johannesburg and a B.A. in political science with a focus on international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She became the first black medical social worker in South Africa. On June 14, 1958, at the age of 21, she married Nelson Mandela, a man nearly 20 years her senior. He was on trial for treason, and her paycheck from her job as a social worker supported them. Winnie Mandela's disgust with the effects of apartheid was growing, as was her political awareness. She joined the Orlando West branch of the African National Congress's Women League (ANCWL), and she began to participate in demonstrations and to speak out against the apartheid state. Her first arrest came in 1958 when she participated in a march protesting the extension of pass laws to women. She was one of more than a thousand women arrested during the demonstration. She spent 2 weeks in jail and subsequently lost her job.

The fight for black equality and freedom in South Africa became her passion. Perhaps an omen, Nomzamo, her Xhosa name, translates as “one who endures trials” and the name fit all her life. The struggle against apartheid that she embraced she fought at great personal costs. In addition to being a young mother and the wife of a jailed husband, she herself was [Page 895]subject to frequent arrest and banning, which forced her away from her support system and the people she loved. She was allowed to visit her husband twice a year in the early years of his imprisonment. Later visits were allowed monthly, but she was denied physical contact with her husband for 22 years. Her two daughters attended boarding school in Swaziland to avoid harassment by the South African police; Winnie Mandela never knew when she would be arrested.

In 1962, the first of many banning orders was imposed on Winnie Mandela. She was prevented from living, working, and socializing in any normal manner. The banning restricted her to Soweto, ordered that she communicate with only one person at a time, that she not publish any statements, and that she not travel. Any violation of these orders would subject Winnie Mandela to house searches, arrest, imprisonment, and stints in solitary confinement. In 1967, she was arrested in Cape Town on a visit to her husband Nelson Mandela; she spent one month in jail. In 1969, she was arrested under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act; she was detained for nearly 18 months in solitary confinement before being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act. Winnie Mandela and 21 others were finally brought to trial in 1970. Despite being initially found guilty, Mandela and the others were acquitted on appeal. In 1976, after the Soweto uprisings, she again served 6 months in jail. Upon her release in 1977, she was banned from Soweto and forced to move to the rural area of Brandfort in the Orange Free State.

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