Winnie Mandela, South African Anti-Apartheid Activist, Dies At 81

Source: Screengrab via SABC Digital News

Winnie Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid campaigner and former wife of Nelson Mandela, has died at the age of 81. The news was announced by Winnie's personal assistant Zodwa Zwane.

"She died after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year," Victor Dlamini, a spokesman for Winnie and her family, said in a statement. "She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones."

In a report from the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Winnie was admitted to the Netcare Milpark Hospital over the weekend, complaining of the flu after she attended a church service on Friday.

Born on September 26, 1936 in Pondoland, Winnie — real name Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela — was raised by her father Columbus (a senior official) and mother Gertrude (a teacher; she died when Winnie was eight). She trained as a social worker, even turning down a scholarship in the United States to remain in South Africa as the first black social worker at the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, according to a report from the New York Times.

In the 1950s she met her future husband, with the two being married for 38 years (although almost three decades of that time they were separated because of Mandela's imprisonment). While Mandela was incarcerated at the Robben Island penal settlement, Winnie tried to offer his followers any updates that she could.

Over the years Winnie was arrested, banned and harassed, even having to spend 18 months in solitary confinement in 1969. In 1990, Mandela and Winnie were reunited when the former was released from prison, with cameras catching the iconic image of Winnie and Mandela holding hands.