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​​​Albertina Sisulu Biography, Timeline and Fact sheet

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Mama Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu was a political activist, nurse and community activist, and also one of the high-profile leaders of anti-apartheid resistance in South Africa. She was born on 21 October 1918 into the Thethiwe family in a village called Xolobe in the Tsomo district of the Transkei in the Eastern Cape.​


In 1926 she began primary school in Xolobe village where she was a model student. Her commitment earned her a bursary to complete her high-school education at the ​prestigious Mariazell College in Matatiele. In 1940, while she was a trainee nurse in the ‘non-European’ wing of the then Johannesburg General Hospital (now Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital), she encountered racism directly. At the time it was common for black nurses to experience discrimination. This sparked her  political consciousness, which further developed when she met Walter Sisulu in 1941; a young militant man who was also a member of the African National  ongress (ANC).


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Albertina Sisulu Timeline:​


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