Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of South African anti-apartheid fighter and former president Nelson Mandela, has died.

Winnie died in a Johannesburg hospital after a long illness on Monday at the age of 81.

Born on Sept. 26, 1936, in Bizana, Eastern Cape province, Winnie became politicized at an early age in her job as a hospital social worker.

Winnie was married to Nelson Mandela for 38 years, from 1958 to 1996, but her husband spent most of their marriage behind bars for his political activities, which made him a symbol of hope for millions of black South Africans seeking their rights in a country dominated by a racist white minority.

Once known as “the mother of the nation, Winnie Mandela’s legacy as an anti-apartheid heroine was undone when she was revealed to be a ruthless ideologue prepared to sacrifice laws and lives in pursuit of revolution and redress, her fall from grace began around the time of Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990, when she was implicated in brutal behavior by the Mandela United Football Club, which she founded.

She was convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old who was beaten to death by members of the club. Madikizela-Mandela was given a six-year sentence that was eventually reduced to a fine.

Her uncompromising methods and refusal to forgive contrasted sharply with the reconciliation espoused by her husband as he worked to forge a stable, pluralistic democracy from the racial division and oppression of apartheid.

The contradiction helped destroy their marriage and destroyed the esteem in which she was held by many South Africans, although the firebrand activist retained the support of radical black nationalists to the end.

In her twilight years, Winnie had frequent run-ins with authority that further undermined her reputation as a fighter against the white regime that ran Africa’s most advanced economy from 1948 to 1994.

During her husband’s 27-year incarceration, she campaigned tirelessly for his release and for the rights of black South Africans, suffering years of detention, banishment and arrest by the white authorities.

She remained steadfast and unbowed throughout, emerging to punch the air triumphantly in the clenched-fist black power salute as she walked hand in hand with Mandela out of Cape Town’s Victor Vester prison.

For husband and wife, it was a crowning moment that led four years later to the end of centuries of white domination when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president.

But for his wife, the end of apartheid marked the start of a string of legal and political troubles that, accompanied by tales of her glamorous living, kept her in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Source: http://easternreporter.com/2018/04/02/winnie-madikizela-mandela-dies-at-81/

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