Albertina sisulu biography of william

Albertina sisulu biography of william: This woman, whose name is

In South Africa, where she was affectionately known as Ma Sisulu , she is often called a mother of the nation. Born in rural Transkei , Sisulu moved to Johannesburg in and was a nurse by profession. She entered politics through her marriage to Walter Sisulu and became increasingly engaged in activism after his imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.

In the s she emerged as a community leader in her hometown of Soweto , assuming a prominent role in the establishment of the UDF and the revival of the Federation of South African Women. Between and , she was subject to a near-continuous string of banning orders. In addition to intermittent detention without trial, she was subject to criminal charges on three occasions: she was acquitted of violating pass laws in , convicted of violating the Suppression of Communism Act in , and acquitted of violating the Internal Security Act in the Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial.

After the end of apartheid , Sisulu represented the ANC in the first democratic Parliament before she retired from politics in Sisulu was born on 21 October in the Camama, a village in the Tsomo region of the Transkei. Though her family called her "Ntsiki" throughout her life, she assumed the name Albertina at school, choosing it from a list of European Christian names provided by her missionary schoolteachers.

In , while Sisulu's mother was pregnant with her fifth and final child, Sisulu's father died of occupational lung disease in Camama. In January , Sisulu moved to Johannesburg , where she began her long nursing career as a trainee in the non-European section of the Johannesburg General Hospital.