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20 Things you don’t know about Albert Luthuli
- Full name Inkosi Albert John Lutuli
- Albert Lutuli was born near Bulawayo in what was then called Rhodesia, around 1898
- The third son of Seventh-day Adventist missionary John Bunyan Lutuli and Mtonya Gumede
- His father died, and he and his mother returned to her ancestral home of Groutville in KwaDukuza (Stanger), Natal
- On completing a teaching course at Edendale, near Pietermaritzburg, Lutuli accepted the post of principal and only teacher at a primary school in rural Blaauwbosch, Newcastle, Natal
- In 1920 he received a government bursary to attend a higher teachers’ training course at Adams College, and subsequently joined the training college staff, teaching alongside Z. K. Mathews, who was then head of the Adams College High School
- In 1928 he became secretary of the African Teacher’s Association and in 1933 its president. He was also active in missionary work
- In 1933 the tribal elders asked Lutuli to become chief of the tribe. For two years he hesitated, but accepted the call in early 1936 and became chieftain, until removed from this office by the government in 1953
- In 1944 Lutuli joined the African National Congress (ANC). In 1945 he was elected to the Committee of the KwaZulu Provincial Division of ANC and in 1951 to the presidency of the Division. The next year he joined with other ANC leaders in organizing nonviolent campaigns to defy discriminatory laws.
- The government, charging Lutuli with a conflict of interest, demanded that he withdraw his membership in ANC or forfeit his office as tribal chief. Refusing to do either, he was dismissed from his chieftainship
- A month later Lutuli was elected president-general of ANC, formally nominated by the future Pan Africanist Congress leader Potlako Leballo
- When the second ban expired in 1956, he attended an ANC conference only to be arrested and charged with treason a few months later, along with 155 others. In December 1957, after nearly a year in custody during the preliminary hearings, Lutuli was released and the charges against him and sixty-four of his compatriots were dropped.
- In 1962 he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow by the students, serving until 1965. Since he was banned from travelling to Glasgow the Luthuli Scholarship Fund was set up by the Student Representative Council to enable a black South African student to study at Glasgow University
- In 1962 he published an autobiography entitled Let My People Go.
- In 1966, he was visited by United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was visiting the South Africa at the time. The two discussed the ANC’s struggle. Senator Kennedy’s visit to the country, and his meeting with Lutuli in particular, caused an increase of world awareness of the plight of black South Africans.
- In July 1967, at the age of 69, Lutuli was fatally injured in an accident near his home in Stanger
- Luthuli’s surname is very often spelled Luthuli, as it is in his autobiography, which was prepared for publication by non-vernacular-speaking friends. But Luthuli himself preferred another spelling and signed his name without an h.”
- He was the first African, and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the non-violent struggle against apartheid
- Passed away on 21 July 1967
