AFRICAN

REVOLUTIONISTS

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

RAVI RATNA SUMIT NAWAL
• Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South
African anti-apartheid activist who served as the 1st president of South Africa
 from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first
elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused
on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation.
Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of
the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
 SOME OTHER PROMINENT NAMES IN THE
STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID

Oliver Tambo
 Walter Sisulu
Chief Luthuli
Yusuf Dadoo
Bram Fischer
Robert Sobukwe
 OLIVER TAMBO
• Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 1917 – 24 April 1993) was a
South African anti-apartheid politician and revolutionary who served as 
President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
• In 1955, Tambo became Secretary-general of the ANC after Sisulu was
banned by the South African government under the 
Suppression of Communism Act. In 1958, he became Deputy President of the
ANC and in 1959 was served with a five-year banning order by the
government.
 WALTER SISULU
• Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu (18 May 1912 – 5 May 2003) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and
member of the African National Congress (ANC), serving at times as Secretary-General and Deputy
President of the organization. He was incarcerated at Robben Island, where he served more than 25 years'
imprisonment.
• Sisulu joined the ANC in 1941. In 1943, together with Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, he joined the 
ANC Youth League, founded by Anton Lembede, of which he was initially the treasurer. He later distanced
himself from Lembede after Lembede, who died in 1947, had ridiculed his parentage (Sisulu was the son of
a white foreman). Sisulu was a political networker and had a prominent planning role in the militant 
Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"). He became secretary general of the ANC in 1949, displacing
the more passive older leadership, in a post he held until 1954. He also joined the 
South African Communist Party.
• In 1992, Walter Sisulu was awarded Isitwalandwe Seaparankoe, the highest honour granted by the ANC, for
his contribution to the liberation struggle in South Africa. The government of India awarded him 
Padma Vibhushan in 1998. Walter Sisulu was given a "special official funeral" on 17 May 2003. In 2004 he
was voted 33rd in the SABC 3's Great South Africans.
 CHIEF LUTHULI

• Inkosi Albert John Luthuli (1898 – 21 July 1967), also known by his Zulu

 name Mvumbi (English: continuous rain) was a South African teacher,
activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and politician. In 1952, Luthuli was elected
president of the African National Congress (ANC), at the time an umbrella
organisation leading opposition to the white minority government in South
Africa. Luthuli ended up serving until his accidental death. He was awarded the
1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against 
apartheid. He was the first person of African heritage to be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize. Luthuli was a lay preacher of the United Congregational Church of
Southern Africa (UCCSA) based at its Groutville Congregational Church in
Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal, where Luthuli was laid to rest upon his death in 1967.
 YUSUF DADOO

• Yusuf Mohamed Dadoo (5 September 1909 – 19 September 1983) was a 

South African Communist and an anti-apartheid activist. During his life, he
was chair of both the South African Indian Congress and the 
South African Communist Party, as well as being a major proponent of co-
operation between those organisations and the African National Congress. He
was a leader of the Defiance Campaign and a defendant at the Treason Trial in
1956. His last days were spent in exile in London, where he is buried at 
Highgate Cemetery; a few metres away from the Tomb of Karl Marx.
 BRAM FISCHER
• Abraham Louis Fischer (23 April 1908 – 8 May 1975) was a South African Communist 
lawyer of Afrikaner descent, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of
anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela, at the Rivonia Trial. Following the trial he
was himself put on trial accused of furthering communism. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment, and diagnosed with cancer while in prison. The South African Prisons Act
was extended to include his brother's house in Bloemfontein where he died two months later.
• Fischer joined the Communist Party of South Africa (SACP) in the 1940s and soon rose to
leadership positions. The CPSA had a close relationship with the African National Congress
 (ANC) and in 1943, Fischer co-authored revisions to the constitution of the ANC. In 1946
he was charged with incitement arising out of his position as a leader of the CPSA and the 
African Mine Workers' Strike of that year. After the CPSA was dissolved and banned in
1950, he became Chairman of the illegal South African Communist Party when it was
established underground in 1953.
 ROBERT SOBUKWE

• Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (5 December 1924 – 27 February 1978) was a prominent 

South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and founding member of the 
Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), serving as the first president of the organization.
• Sobukwe was regarded as a strong proponent of an Africanist future for South Africa and
opposed political collaboration with anyone other than Africans, defining "African" as
anyone who lives in and pays his allegiance to Africa and who is prepared to subject
himself to African majority rule.[1] In March 1960, Sobukwe organized and launched a
non-violent protest campaign against pass laws, for which he was sentenced to three years
in prison on grounds of incitement. In 1963, the enactment of the "Sobukwe Clause,"
allowed an indefinite renewal of his prison sentence, and Sobukwe was subsequently
relocated to Robben Island for solitary confinement. At the end of his sixth year at Robben
Island, he was released and placed under house arrest until his death in 1978.
THANK YOU
!!!