Before President Nelson Mandela, there was Chief Albert Luthuli

My collection - 24 carat gold and Sterling silver depicting Albert Luthuli - Nobel Prize Winner
Originally uploaded by makhezulu.

By Tula Dlamini

After an exhausting but interesting day at the Mint SA Coin festival, and having scanned through heaps of numismatic material on display, I was finally looking at a coin that appealed to me personally- the first in the series of Protea Nobel Prize winners, depicting Chief Mvumbi Albert John Luthuli.

I added two pieces to my collection, the sterling silver – limited mintage of 6000 pieces only and a 24 carat gold, I/10 ounce, this even better with a mintage of 1000 pieces.

Luthuli was born in 1898 at Solusi Mission, near Bulwayo. The mission, which is now a University, was named after a respected local leader Soluswe.

My father told me of a legend, that in 1884, during the first so called ‘Matebele uprising’ against British colonial domination in Southern Rhodesia, missionaries from the Seventh Day Advertist Church, who being pursued by the Matebele warriors, sought refuge with the man they knew and trusted. His name was Soluswe – close confidant of Albert’s parents, John Luthuli, and Matonya Gumede.

Soluswe begot Wabayi, who upon getting married to Dickson Mbanje Moyo begot my father Dennis Mqanjelwa and two younger brothers, Joel and Nelson.

When Albert Luthuli’s father died, he and his mother left Solusi Mission for Groutville in KwaDukuza (Stanger), Natal, South Africa, where they were cared for by Martin Luthuli, Albert's uncle, who was at that time the elected chief of the Christian Zulus inhabiting the Umvoti Mission Reserve.

After his uncle's death, Albert accepted the chieftaincy of the Groutville reserve, not least because he was considered a member of a royal family by the christian Zulus, but through an election process.

In 1945, Chief Albert Luthuli joined the African National Congress (ANC) and the following year he joined the Natives Representative Council, set up in 1936 to act in an advisory basis to four white senators who provided parliamentary 'representation' for the entire Black African population.

The Council was later abolished by the government.

In 1952 Chief Luthuli was one of the leading lights behind the Defiance Campaign – a non-violent protest against the pass laws.

The Apartheid government was annoyed and Luthuli was given the choice of renouncing his membership of the ANC or face being removed from his position as tribal chief – a post that was supported and paid for by the government.

Luthuli refused to resign from the ANC and for that the aparthied government stripped him of his chieftainship.

In 1956 he was arrested together with tens of other people accused of high treason. He was released for 'lack of evidence'.

In 1960, following the Sharpeville Massacre, Luthuli led the call for protest.He publicly burned his pass book, an event that led to his detention on 30 March under the 'State of Emergency' declared by the South African government. More than 18,000 people were arrested in a series of police raids.

On release he was confined by the aparthied state decree to his home in Stanger, Natal.

In 1961, Luthuli was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for Peace for his part in the anti-Apartheid struggle.

Chief Albert Luthuli remained president-general of the ANC until on 21 July 1967, and whilst out walking near his home, he was hit by a train and died. He was supposedly crossing the railway line at the time. This explanation is contested by many of his followers who believe more sinister forces were at work.

Read more on Chief Albert Luthuli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Luthuli