Oliver Reginald Tambo was a prominent South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. Born in 1917 in rural Mbizana, Tambo began his formal education at age seven and went on to study at the University College of Fort Hare, where he became involved in politics and was expelled for leading a student boycott. He then taught at St Peters College and later co-founded the ANC Youth League, working alongside Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu to bring a new spirit of militancy to the post-war ANC.
Tambo left teaching to set up a legal partnership with Mandela and was among the volunteers who courted imprisonment by breaking apartheid laws during the Campaign of Defiance of Unjust Laws of 1952. He was elected deputy president of the ANC in 1958 and asked by the ANC to travel abroad to set up the ANC’s international mission and mobilise international opinion against apartheid. With the help of Dr Yusuf Dadoo of the Transvaal Indian Congress, Tambo established the South African United Front, which secured the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth in 1961. He also established ANC missions in numerous countries and was instrumental in securing the cooperation of numerous African governments in providing training and camp facilities for the ANC.
Tambo became acting president of the ANC after the death of Albert Luthuli in 1967 and was elected chairperson of the ANC‘s Revolutionary Council in 1969. During his years in the ANC, he played a major role in the growth and development of the movement and its policies. He raised its international prestige and status, directing the South African struggle from Lusaka and making the struggle against apartheid an international moral crusade against racism. He was also instrumental in developing the Harare Declaration and ensuring its adoption by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the UN.
Tambo united all anti-apartheid forces behind the vision of the ANC and his leadership skills and vision were the cohesive force that held the ANC together for three decades. He served as ANC president from 1967 to 1991 – the longest-serving ANC president. Tambo died from a stroke on 24 April 1993, shortly after witnessing the death of Chris Hani, former chief of MK and a hero of the liberation struggle.