Oliver Reginald Tambo, a man sometimes referred to as the ‘other half’ of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) party, was born on this day in 1917 in today’s Eastern Cape province in South Africa.
As a child, Tambo excelled academically and received a scholarship to study sciences and teaching at the University of Fort Hare – the only tertiary institution that admitted Black students. There he met and befriended a certain Nelson Mandela. The two set up South Africa’s first Black-owned law firm and also helped set up the ANC’s Youth League.
The 1950s saw Tambo rise through the ranks of the ANC. In 1957, he became its vice president.
In the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, which saw 69 protesters gunned down by the police as they peacefully protested against the draconian Pass Laws, the ANC asked Tambo to go into exile and set up operations there. The main reason was that, shortly after the massacre, the apartheid regime banned the ANC, thereby making it illegal for it to operate openly. Tambo ended up spending three decades abroad.
Tambo is credited with holding the liberation movement together during a difficult time when it was facing an onslaught from the apartheid regime. In the late ’80s, the regime reluctantly came to the negotiating table after losses on the battlefield in Angola and under the pressure of international sanctions. Tambo led the talks, which ultimately resulted in the unbanning of the ANC and the release of political prisoners – including Mandela, in 1990. That year, Tambo returned to his homeland.
Unfortunately, Tambo did not live to see the ‘promised land.’
A year after returning to South Africa, he suffered a stroke, the second one in two years. This led him to hand over the leadership of the party to Mandela. He died on 24th April 1993 – one year before the country’s first full democratic elections that brought the ANC to power.
Long live the revolutionary spirit of Oliver Tambo!
