Adelaide Tambo dies

Johannesburg - Adelaide Tambo, widow of former ANC leader Oliver Tambo, has died, the SABC reported on Wednesday.

She was 77.

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MyDraadloos said:

Don't know what the big deal is, she was merely the wife of someone famous / infamous.

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Adelaide Tambo’s political life started at the age of 10 after a raid by the police, following a riot in Top Location, Vereeniging. A police officer had been killed, and Adelaide's ailing grandfather, aged 82, was among those who were arrested and taken to the town square. There the old man collapsed and Adelaide had to sit with him until he regained consciousness. The way the young policemen pushed him around and called him 'boy' made her swear to fight them till the end. This was in 1939 and at the time she was a primary school pupil at St Thomas Practising School in Johannesburg. In 1944, she started working for the ANC as a courier, while studying at Orlando High. She had joined the school's debating society and it was during this time that Dr Malan was entrenching apartheid, which became a heated matter for most of the students.

At 18, Adelaide joined the ANC Youth League and was elected chairperson of the George Goch branch and one of her duties was to open branches of the Youth League in the Transvaal. Later, as a student nurse at Pretoria General Hospital, she started a branch with the help of people like Sheila Musi, Mildred Kuzwayo and Nonhle Zokwe. She met Oliver Tambo at a meeting of the Eastern township branch of the ANC and the two were married in December 1956, during the Treason Trial. They were aware that both were likely to be arrested sometime and so discussed their political involvement as well as having children. They decided that one would have to do full-time political work and the other would have to work part time and take full charge of all family matters, including giving support to the old people of both families.

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StrongTurd said:

I see that she died in her house in Hyde Park, which happens to be the most exclusive suburb in Gauteng. The people looked after their beloved Mama very well....

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xtermin8or said:

You have access to the 'net, use it, if you don't know what you're talking about, google before posting

OUR HEROES WILL BE REMEMBERED - her name should go on the wall of names at Freedom Park now

Adelaide Frances (Tshukudu) Tambo

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She met the late OR Tambo at a meeting of the Eastern township branch of the ANC and married him in December 1956, during the marathon Treason Trial.

"We were aware we were both likely to be arrested sometime. We discussed our political involvement and having children. We decided that one of us would have to do full-time political work and the other would have to work part time and take full charge of all other family matters,including supporting the old people of both families."

OR and Adelaide Tambo were asked by the ANC to leave the country in 1960 and to carry on the work of the organisation outside South Africa once again. Once again Adelaide Tambo became a courier - this time for her husband.

Based in London until the unbannings, Tambo was a founder member of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement and the Pan-African Women's Organisation (PAWO). She also worked with IDAF to identify and financially assist some of the families whose children left South Africa in the post-'76 deluge.

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xtermin8or said:

The article clearly says Dr Malan was entrenching Apartheid, not originating it, and George Goch was a branch of the ANC at the time

Learn to read

about her nursing studies, I am not sure, but she did leave the country

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xtermin8or said:

No, it seems you are struggling with basic understanding - So iam not going to argue with an idiot any longer, while the rest of us pay tribute to a true hero of our country, why don't you go and pay your tributes to Verwoerd on stormfront

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xtermin8or said:

to which you pay tribute ?

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