Adelaide Tambo

Adelaide Frances Tambo, born Tshukudu, ( born July 18, 1929 in Vereeniging, † January 31, 2007 in Johannesburg), also known as Ma Tambo was a South African politician and civil rights activist.

Life

Tambo was the daughter of an evangelical preacher. With ten years she learned the Apartheid know the first time when her grandfather collapsed during an uprising and was called by a policeman Boy. She trained as a nurse and midwife in the present province of Gauteng. At 14 she began to work for the ANC as a courier, 1947, she joined the Youth League of the ANC. She was elected to the representative of the George Goch township and was responsible for the expansion of the Youth League in the Transvaal. In 1956, she met Oliver Tambo, who was Secretary General of the ANC at the time, and married him in December of the year; with him she had a son and two daughters.

After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 Tambo went into exile in London to organize from there internationally resistance. She was co-founder of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement and the Pan - African Women 's Organisation ( PAWO ). After the end of apartheid in 1994, she returned back to South Africa, the same year she was elected treasurer of the ANC Women's League and the South African Parliament. Until 1999 she was a member of Parliament. She died in Johannesburg, the cause of death could not be determined.

Awards

  • Oliver Tambo / Johnny Makatini Freedom Prize, awarded in 1995
  • Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest award of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, awarded 1997
  • Noel Foundation Life Award
  • Order of the Baobab in Gold awarded in 2002
  • State funeral on February 10, 2007
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