• WALTER SISULU, a sense of outrage

WALTER SISULU, a sense of outrage

: Lodge (T.) with Southall (R.)

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219pp., paperback, First SA Edition, Jacana, Johannesburg, 2026

ISBN: 9781431434305

 

This biography of Walter Sisulu (1912-2003), drafted by political historian Tom Lodge before his death and completed by Roger Southall, offers a detailed analysis of his commitment and contribution to the South African liberation struggle.

Walter Sisulu served as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and Deputy-President(1991–1994). One of the Rivonia trialists, he spent twenty-five years imprisoned on Robben Island (1964-1989). Together with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, he played a key role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign and in establishing the ANC Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe. He also served on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party. 

Tom Lodge pronounces him an exceptional organiser, the most influential planner of the ANC’s mass campaigning during the 1950s, and alongside Mandela, an advocate of the necessity of armed struggle. He details how Sisulu navigated the ambiguous relationship between the ANC and Umkhontho we Sizwe, and the lead role he played as a defendant in the Rivonia trial. As a prisoner on Robben Island, he is presented as a calming influence amidst the divisive ideological debates, as well as a constant source of strength and support to Mandela. After his release from jail in 1989, he again demonstrated his prowess as the chief organiser of the ANC prior to the 1994 elections.

Tom Lodge worked at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1978 to 2005, where he was Professor of Political Studies from 1997, before becoming Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Limerick in Ireland. His books include Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983), Mandela: A critical biography (2006), Sharpeville: An apartheid massacre and its consequences (2011), and Red Road to Freedom: A history of the South African Communist Party, 1921–2021 (2021). He died in 2023 before completing the manuscript for this book.

Roger Southall is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand. His books include Imperialism or Solidarity? International labour and South African trade unions (1995) and Smuts and Mandela: The men who made South Africa (2024).