Fearless and Unstoppable: Remembering the Strength of Winnie Mandela

Many see Winnie Mandela simply through the lens of her late ex-husband's struggle, but attention should be paid to what we really lost on Monday

Blue Telusma

Apr 2, 2018

Winnie Mandela thegrio.com — (Getty Images)

By midday Monday, the death at age 81 of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the iconic — and at times controversial — symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, had been confirmed.

And I really need folks to understand the magnitude of who (and what) we lost today.

Winnie Mandela was the embodiment of the devotion, strength and tenacity that often makes Black women appear otherworldly to mere mortals. For decades she carried the hopes, fears and dreams of oppressed South Africans on her back even after her husband was ripped from her home and sentenced to a life behind bars.

“I don’t think the world would have known a Nelson Mandela, were it not for Winnie,” said Saths Cooper, a psychologist who was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela after participating in the 1976 Soweto riots.

And he’s right. Without Winnie there would be no Nelson Mandela legacy.

Born to a Xhosa family in Bizana, in what was then the Union of South Africa, Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela (Winnie) had a fairly modest upbringing and studied social work before that fateful day in 1957 when she caught the eye of a young lawyer named Nelson while waiting at a bus stop in Soweto.

Within a year the two were married.

And by their fifth anniversary they had become a part of the anti-apartheid movement – with Nelson being sent off to jail for treason.

For most people, the story probably would have ended there. And to Cooper’s point – Nelson Mandela could have just become another activist locked away by a corrupt system.

But he had one thing that many of his fellow inmates didn’t have — he had Winnie. And she had no intention of leaving him in there without a fight.

“Winnie stands out in a class of her own for having the chutzpah, for having the intellect, for having the beauty, and for having the understanding of the moment to take advantage of. Long before soundbites became normal – she had that ability,” Cooper explained.

Not only did Winnie understand the power of visibility and leveraging the media to get her husband the attention he needed, she also had a deep appreciation for the impact that the arts could have in inspiring the masses to listen.

During Nelson Mandela’s prison sentence, his wife was known to encourage artists traveling outside of South Africa to speak up about the atrocities they faced back home.

“Whether we were at shows, whether we were performing in stadiums or in halls, she would be there to say, ‘You musicians, you writers, you painters, you’ve got the voice’,” said South African singer, Yvonne Chaka Chaka – noting that Winnie often encouraged them to “tell the world that we want Mandela released.”

“For me, I think this is the woman who kept the Mandela name alive,” explains Chaka, echoing the sentiments of many who knew the couple.

Winnie Mandela methodically turned her husband into a figure of mythical proportions and made sure people knew his name well beyond the borders of their homeland.

She campaigned so tirelessly for his release and for the rights of black South Africans, that in 1990 when Mandela emerged from prison, clutching her in one hand, while they triumphantly raised their fists in the Black power salute – the entire world stood up and took notice.

Four years later, Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president, ending centuries of white domination.

Seriously – there is arguably no greater testament to the earth shattering power of love.

Winnie Mandela’s commitment to her family and her country literally freed a nation and brought white supremacy to it’s knees. That alone, should give even her staunchest critics a reason to concede what a great loss we’re all feeling today.

But as we mourn – we can’t do her the disservice of pretending her life was always triumphant.

Even heroes have dark days

In response to her ferocious tenacity, Winnie was relentlessly targeted by the government, jailed, tortured, and threatened with rape.

“I can’t remember how many times I’ve been arrested or how many times I’ve been jailed,” she once confessed in an on-air interview. “There have been too many.”

Those traumatic experiences that left her waking up in the middle of the night, screaming from nightmares and constantly in fear for her life and the lives of her children — inevitably changed her.

“What I went through, that personal experience hardened me so much” she once admitted. “At the end of my interrogation, looking at my interrogators and what I had gone through, I knew that as I sat in that cell, if my own father or my brother walked in dangling a gun and he was on the other side – and I had a gun too in my hand – in defense of the ideals for which I was being tortured.. I would fire.”

Even though it is Nelson we we often think of behind bars, Winnie’s constant incarceration and torture at the hands of her captors only made her more radical and vocal.

“Being subjected to the kind of treatment, torture and humiliation that she was, she must have become very angry and wanted to seek a kind of vengeance for that” Cooper says of his old friend. “And so the kinds of things that she embarked on thereafter where exemplary of that.”

Like most notable figures calling for revolution, Winnie became the focus of many scandals. Her reputation constantly under attack, her intentions questioned, and her legacy scarred by accusations of fraud, and a 1991 conviction that led to her being sentenced to six years in prison — in connection with the 1988 kidnapping and beating of four young men in Soweto (allegedly orchestrated by some of her allies).

Even in the face of all that, Winnie simply refused to break.

“Mrs. Mandela looked defiant as she walked out of the courthouse to cheers from several hundred waiting supporters, some of whom held placards declaring ‘Stop harassing our mother Winnie Mandela’,” reported The New York Times the day she was released on bail.

So yeah, to call her perfect would definitely be inaccurate and also a huge disservice.

She was better than perfect, she was a fighter, she was the mother of her nation, she was a wife who moved heaven and earth to set her beloved free, she was a testament to everything that makes being a woman such a privilege.

And it’s truly my hope, that today we all take a moment, to reflect on what she taught us about the power of unwavering conviction – even in the face of complete and total darkness.