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Albert John Mvumbi Lutuli, also spelt Luthuli,
(1898 - 1967) was born near Bulawayo where his
father was a Christian missionary of
Zulu decent.
His father died when he was an infant, and in
1908 his mother sent him back to the family's
traditional home in Natal. Lutuli then lived for a
period in the household of his uncle, Martin
Luthuli, who was Chief of the Christian Zulus
inhabiting Umvoti Mission Reserve near Groutville.
 In
1920 he received a government bursary to attend
teacher training at Adams College, and subsequently
joined the staff, teaching alongside Z.K. Mathews
who was head of the Adams College High School.
In 1927 Lutuli married a fellow teacher,
Nokukhanya Bhengu. They established their permanent
home in Groutville where, in 1929, the first of
their seven children was born. In 1928 he became
secretary of the African Teacher's Association and
in 1933 its president.
Succumbing to repeated calls from the elders of
his tribe to come home and lead them, Lutuli left
teaching in 1936 to accept the chieftaincy at the
Groutville Bantu reserve and became the
administrator of tribal affairs. This was not a
hereditary position as his tribe had a democratic
system of electing its chiefs.
For many South Africans 1936 was a year of
political disturbances, economic plunder and
uncertainty. That year, the country was faced with
the notorious Hertzog Bills. One of the Bills known
as the "Representation of Natives Act" which
rendered the African vote in the Cape Province
valueless. The other, the "Natives Land and Trust
Bill", sought to limit the land to be owned or
occupied by the African population of 12 million
people to 12.5% of the land, while reserving the
remaining 87.5% for a population of less than three
million whites.
For 17 years Lutuli immersed himself in the
local problems of his people, adjudicating,
mediating local quarrels, and organising cane
growers to guard their own interests. Through minor
clashes with the white authorities he gained
first-hand experience of African political
predicaments.
With this background, Lutuli openly and boldly
joined the struggle for the right of Africans to
full and unfettered development. He joined the
African National Congress (ANC) in 1945.
In 1948 the newly-elected Nationalist Party
formally adopted its policy of apartheid or "total
apartness".
Lutuli was elected Provincial President of the
African National Congress in Natal in 1951. From
that time he threw himself body and soul into the
struggle.
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In 1951 the ANC formulated a policy of
non-violence specially for the conduct of
the "National Campaign for Defiance of
Unjust Laws" in 1952.
As a government-sponsored chief, Lutuli
was not allowed to take part in politics,
but he defied his ban. When he was called
upon by the Government to choose between his
chieftainship and the ANC, he chose the ANC.
He was deposed as chief by the government in
1952 and a month later elected
President-General of the African National
Congress.
Responding immediately, the government
sought to minimize his effectiveness as a
leader by banning him from the larger South
African centres and from all public meetings
for two years.
 Upon
the expiration of that ban, he went to
Johannesburg to address a meeting but at the
airport was served with a second ban
confining him to a twenty-mile radius of his
home for another two years. When this second
ban expired, he attended an ANC conference
in 1956, only to be arrested and charged
with treason a few months later, along with
150 others.
The Treason Trial opened in January 1957
and concluded on 29th March 1961 when all
the accused, including
Nelson
Mandela, were found not guilty.
Together with 2,000 other leaders he was
again arrested and detained for five months
in 1960 under the State of Emergency which
followed the burning of Pass books and the
Sharpeville massacre.
 Lutuli
was found guilty, fined, given a jail
sentence that was suspended because of the
precarious state of his health, and returned
to the isolation of Groutville. One final
time the ban was lifted, this time for ten
days in early December of 1961 to permit
Lutuli and his wife to attend the Nobel
Peace Prize ceremonies in Oslo.
A fourth ban to run for five years
confining Lutuli to the immediate vicinity
of his home was issued in May, 1964, the day
before the expiration of the third ban.
For fifteen years or so before his
death, Lutuli suffered from high blood
pressure and once had a slight stroke. With
age, his hearing and eyesight also became
impaired - perhaps a factor in his death.
For in July 1967, at the age of 69, he was
fatally injured when he was struck by a
freight train as he walked on the trestle
bridge over the Umvoti River near his home.
 Although
Lutuli he grew up under tribal conditions
and surroundings, he was uncom-promising
against racialism, tribalism and all forms
of racial and sectional exclusiveness. He
believed in and fought for full political,
economic and social opportunities for the
oppressed people of South Africa regardless
of colour, creed, nationality or racial
origin.
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