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Albert John Luthuli was a leader of black South Africans who fought against the government. He used peaceful methods to end the backward system of apartheid, which helped turn the world against South Africa’s apartheid policy. He was born into the Zulu tribe at the end of the 1800s. He started as a teacher but later quit to become the tribe’s leader after being asked to do so by the tribe’s elders. After that, he focused on making the lives of his fellow Christians better. But when the minority white government started to use brutal force to stop the black population from wanting more, he got involved in national politics and eventually became the president of the African National Congress. He was banned for most of his life, but he kept inspiring his people through speeches and written statements. He was the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 for his peaceful fight against apartheid.
Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli was born in Southern Rhodesia, which is now called Zimbabwe, at Solusi Mission Station, which is near Bulawayo. Even though no one knows when he was born, he worked out that he was born in 1898.
His father, John Bunyan Lutuli, was the youngest son of a tribal chief at Groutville in the Umvoti Mission Reserve near Stanger, Natal. He became a Christian missionary for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and when Albert was born, he was working as an interpreter among the Matabele of Rhodesia.
His mother, Mtonya Gumede, lived with Cetewayo kaMpande, the king of the Zulu Kingdom, for part of her childhood. But she was mostly raised in Groutville. Albert was their third child together. Since there is no information about his siblings, it is assumed that he was the only one who lived.
Albert was eight years old when he lost his father. Between 1906 and 1908, he went with his mother to Groutville, where his ancestors had lived. There, he lived with his uncle, Martin Lutuli, who had taken over as chief of the tribe from his grandfather.
Albert went to the local Congregationalist mission school in 1911. His mother, who was now a washerwoman, helped pay for him to go there. Here, he went to school until the fourth grade. When he lived with his uncle, he also learned about tribal values and traditions.
Albert was moved to the Ohlange Institute in 1914. He went there for two terms.
After passing the end-of-year test at Ohlange Institute, Albert was sent to a Methodist school in Edendale, KwaZulu-Natal province, to take a course to become a teacher. In 1917, he got his diploma from there.
Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli started his career in 1917 as the head of a rural primary school in Blaauwbosch, Natal. But since he was the only person working at the school, he had to do a lot of different things.
Luthuli worked here as a teacher for about two years. During this time, he joined the Methodist Church and became a lay preacher. He also continued to teach.
In 1920, the government gave him a scholarship that he used to take a higher teachers’ training course at Adams College, which is south of Durbar. At the time, it was one of the best schools in southern Africa, and he loved the atmosphere there.
When he graduated from Adams, he was offered a scholarship to study at the University of Fort Hare. He turned it down, though, because he thought it was time for him to take care of his mother. So, he became a teacher at Adams College, where he was paid £10 a month.
Albert Luthuli was happy in Adams. He did missionary work and became the secretary of the College Football Association when he wasn’t teaching. Besides that, he started going to Durban Joint Council meetings.
Luthuli was elected Secretary of the African Teachers Association in 1928. In 1933, he became the Association’s President. In 1933, the tribal elders of the Groutville community asked him to take over as chief of the tribe from Josiah Mqebu, who had been chief since 1921.
Albert Luthuli was now very comfortable in his job and liked that he got paid every month. He didn’t want to lose that. After hesitating for two years, he finally went back to Groutville in early 1936 to take over as chief.
The people of Groutville were going through a very hard time. The main crop of the area, sugarcane, had failed, making life very hard for the people. He now works hard to help his five thousand tribesmen, who are poor, don’t have land, and don’t have a political voice.
As the leader of his tribe, he had a lot to do. In addition to working for the good of his people, he also had to act as a representative for both the government and his people. He had to perform magisterial duties and act as a peacemaker if there was a fight. During traditional celebrations, he was the person in charge.
During those early years, his main goal may have been to help his people as a whole, and he didn’t get involved in politics much until 1945. During this time, he did not just work in Groutville, though. He also started the Zulu Language and Cultural Society.
He was also the secretary of both the South African Football Association and the Natal African Teachers’ Association. He was also a member of the Christian Council Executive, the Joint Council of Europeans and Africans, and the Institute of Race Relations in Durban.
In 1938, he went to India to go to Tambaram, Madras, for the International Missionary Conference. It was his first trip outside of his country, which may have helped him see things differently.
By the middle of the 1930s, the South African government was making it harder and harder for black people to live there. Luthuli knew it was time to do something. In 1945, he was elected to the ANC Committee for KwaZulu Province.
In 1946, he was elected to the Natives Representative Council, which is a group of chiefs and smart people who advise the government. But soon after he was elected, workers at the Witwatersrand gold field went on strike. Eight miners were killed and thousands more were hurt when the police broke up the strike.
Luthuli joined the people in protesting while the council did nothing to stop the violence. Slowly, he moved out of his role as chief of the tribe and into national politics.
In 1948, the Congregational Board of Missions invited him to tour the United States. There, he talked about the state of his people and warned that racism against black people in Africa would put Christianity to a very hard test.
When he went back home after nine months, he found that there was a policy of total apartheid. This made it harder for black people to move around.
In 1951, Luthuli went to the ANC national conference and spoke for Natal. At this conference, he asked black Africans to work together and rethink the problems they were facing at the time. He was also elected President of the KwaZulu Provincial Division of the ANC that same year.
In 1952, the South African Indian Congress and the African National Congress worked together to start a nonviolent campaign against unfair laws. The movement began on June 26, and Luthuli was in charge of the campaign in Natal. It was called the “Defiance Campaign.”
During this time, he worked hard to get people to sign up as volunteers. He also spoke at a lot of meetings, especially in the East Rand area, which led to bus boycotts, sit-ins, and strikes in the workplace.
He was now charged with having a conflict of interest by the government. It told him he had to quit the ANC or give up his job as tribal chief, which, even though he was elected, he held at the government’s pleasure. He wouldn’t do either one.
Luthuli was fired from his job in November 1952. As a response, he made a statement called “The Cross is the Way to Freedom.” He stayed the de-facto leader for the rest of his life, so the removal didn’t work. In December 1953, he was also elected President-general of the ANC.
As soon as Luthuli was chosen to be president-general of the ANC, the government banned him under the Internal Security (Suppression of Communism) Act to make him less effective. He couldn’t go to any public or political events for a year, and he also couldn’t go to any big cities.
Despite this, he kept working toward his goal. On February 21, 1954, he sent a speech called “Let’s March Together to Freedom” to the 6th Annual Conference of the Natal Indian Congress in Durban.
In June 1954, he wrote “A message to the African people and their allies in the Union of South Africa’s struggle for freedom.” Through it, he started a new campaign to bring the uneducated up to speed on the situation and build bridges between the educated and the uneducated.
As soon as the one-year ban was over, Luthuli got back to work, starting conferences and campaigns. On July 11, 1954, he went to Johannesburg to speak at a protest meeting, but as soon as he got off the plane, he was given another order to stop speaking.
The second ban, which was put in place for another two years, said that he couldn’t go more than twenty miles from his home. Even though he couldn’t do his day-to-day job as president-general, he was still able to inspire people with his speeches, which were read at conferences.
In July 1956, when the second ban ended, Luthuli started going to meetings and conferences again. On December 5, 1956, he and 155 other activists were charged with treason and put in jail.
Luthuli was jailed for a year, from December 1956 to December 1957. The charges against him were dropped in December 1957. He started his fight against racism all over again. Some of his speeches were aimed at white South Africans, and some of them gave him a lot of praise for that.
In his speeches, he called for a society with people of different races, and many white people started to show up to his meetings. Many people from other countries were impressed by his quiet authority and his talks gave them hope.
As a response, the government put in place the third ban. The ban, which was put in place on May 25, 1959, said that he couldn’t leave his home district for five years or go to any meeting anywhere in South Africa. But in December 1961, it was temporarily changed so he could go to Oslo to accept the Nobel Prize.
He went back to his fight when he got back. In 1962, he said, “We don’t want crumbs” when the government offered him land. On the other hand, he and Martin Luther King Jr. made a statement together called “Appeal for Action Against Apartheid.”
In 1964, he got his fourth and final ban, which kept him from leaving his home in Groutville. From there, he kept working until he died three years later. He wrote speeches and dictated his autobiography.
The Nobel Peace Prize was given to Albert Luthuli in 1960. In 1961, one year after he won, he got his prize.
In 1962, the students of the University of Glasgow chose him to be Rector. He held this honorary position until 1965. A fund called the Luthuli Scholarship Fund was also set up so that a black student from South Africa could go to Glasgow University.
Albert Luthuli married another teacher, Nokukhanya Bhengu, in 1927. Their permanent home was in Groutville, where they had seven children.
Luthuli was forced to live alone during his last years, while the African National Congress gave up on its policy of nonviolence. He also had high blood pressure and had a small stroke at one point. As he aged, both his hearing and his eyesight got worse.
He was walking across a trestle bridge over the Umvuti River near his farm on July 21, 1967, when he was hit by a freight train and killed.
The Episcopal Church has given Luthuli a feast day in his honor (USA). It falls on July 21, which is the day he died.
Albert Luthuli was the first person from a place other than Europe or the United States to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
His name in Zulu, Mumbai, means “constant rain.”
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