Identity area
Reference code
ZA COM NMAP 2010/9-1
Title
Smuggled Letters - Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada
Date(s)
- 1959-01-01 - 1978-12-31 (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
3 Items
Context area
Name of creator
Name of creator
(08 August 1929 - 28 March 2017)
Biographical history
Anti-apartheid activist, politician, political prisoner and MP. Leading member of the ANC and of the SACP. Founding member of the Transvaal Indian Volunteer Corps and its successor, the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. Imprisoned for one month in 1946 for his participation in the SAIC’s Passive Resistance Campaign against the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act. Convicted for his participation in the 1952 Defiance Campaign. Banned in 1954. Co-organiser of the Congress of the People and a member of the Congress Alliance General Purpose Committee. Detained during the 1960 State of Emergency. One of the last twenty-eight accused in the Treason Trial acquitted in 1961. Placed under house arrest in 1962. Arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in July 1963 and charged with sabotage in the Rivonia Trial. Imprisoned on Robben Island, 1964–82, then Pollsmoor Prison until his release on 15 October 1989. MP from 1994, after South Africa’s first democratic elections, and served as political adviser to President Mandela.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
2 handwritten manuscripts of letters by Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada. Includes envelope which Jude Pillay posted had posted to himself in case he was questioned as to how he received the letters. Judge Thumba Pillay donated the two letters and the envelope to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in 2009.