Political leader, Walter Ulyate Sisulu was born in the Engcobo area in the Transkei. He worked as a miner, baker’s assistant, domestic helper and factory hand. He was an active trade unionist before joining the African National Congress (ANC) in 1940 and immediately demonstrated a talent for leadership and organisation. Determined that the movement should become more militant, he was instrumental, along with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, in forming the ANC Youth League (1944). He was elected as treasurer, and thereafter rose rapidly through the ranks of the parent body, serving as secretary-general from 1949 to 1954. Sisulu was a key figure in events leading up to the ANC’s acceptance of the ANC Youth League’s Program of Action in 1949.
He was one of the key figures in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and was banned in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act. He visited communist block countries in Eastern Europe, Israel, China and Britain. At the end of the decade Sisulu had moderated his views somewhat to support the non-racial Congress Alliance.
Sisulu helped form Umkhonto we Sizwe (1961), the ANC’s military wing. He was charged with treason at the Rivonia trials in 1961 and was sent to Robben Island.
In October 1989 the South African government released Sisulu from prison.
In July 1991 Sisulu was elected ANC Deputy-President. Walter Sisulu retired on the eve of South Africa’s first non racial elections in 1994. He died at his home in Orlando on 5 May 2003.
Source: SA History
