Oliver Tambo

“It was always my desire to strike new ground and help to lend weight where it was most required.”

“I was just an ordinary student. I'd always gotten along with authorities quite well.”

“The sanctions will not kill us. It's apartheid that's killing us.”

“How can it be said we should use only constitutional means in our struggle, when all resistance is illegal and we have no way to change the brutal realities of the racism regime?”

“I would not hesitate to vote for a white person as president if I thought he was the best person for the job.”

“Racial discrimination, South Africa's economic power, its oppression and exploitation of all the black peoples, are part and parcel of the same thing.”

“My sister had some ailment and convulsions that she suffered from, and she had been sent to some place to go and get healed there. She was brought back and prayed for by those people. She recovered; in fact, she grew to be an evangelist in her own right, healing people and traveling around.”

“There is no way a spirit of resistance that has sunk so deep in the population can be repressed.”

“In Holy Cross, I came to like school, to like studying in a way I had never done before.”

“It was of limited usefulness to head great rallies. The government did not listen, and, soon enough, the tear gas and the muzzles of the guns were turned against the people. The justice of our cries went unrecognized.”

“I didn't really want to be a teacher, but there was nothing else I could be. Most of those who went to the university became teachers. It was just the racial restriction on Africans.”

“You were not wanted. You were, at best, tolerated. You had to be constantly on your guard, like an animal in a jungle full of beasts of prey. You experienced it all within the short distance of five miles from the gates of St. Peter's to Park Station in the city.”

“The Soviet Union was a very useful ally in the defeat of Nazi Germany.”

“In May 1961, South Africa was to be declared a Nationalist Republic. There was a white referendum, but no African was consulted.”

“We have a vision of South Africa in which black and white shall live and work together as equals in conditions of peace and prosperity.”

“Responsibility for the proper conduct of children was not confined to their parents only. When they misbehaved, they misbehaved against the community. And a senior member of the community was expected to do something about it.”

“Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.”

“The popularity of leaders like Mandela was an invitation to counter-attack by the government. Mandela was banned from speaking, from attending gatherings, from leaving Johannesburg, from belonging to any organization.”

“The true facts are not always obvious. They often have to be looked for.”

“There is nothing in ANC policy which calls for attacks on civilians in supermarkets, schools, and cinemas unless these are regarded as military installations.”