It was on this day, April 24, 1993, that the former South African politician and anti-apartheid activist Oliver Tambo died in Johannesburg after a protracted battle with illness.
Tambo served as the President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991 and with Nelson Mandela were the first black to open a law firm in apartheid South Africa
Born on October 27, 1917, in what is now known as the Eastern Cape, he along with Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela founded the ANC Youth League in 1944, with him as the National Secretary.
The Youth League sought to adopt a new strategy of civil disobedience as against petitions in combating apartheid in the country
In 1955, he became Secretary-general of the ANC after Sisulu was barred by the South African government under the Suppression of Communism Act. He was elevated to the Deputy President three years later.
After the government banned him from political activity in 1959, he went into exile a year later to garner more support for the anti-apartheid movement. While in exile, he became Acting President of the ANC and began to covertly mobilise guerilla activities against the government.
After a thirty-year exile, he returned to South Africa in 1990 after the ANC was legalised. However, he died in 1993 due to the complications of a stroke he suffered about four years earlier. He was buried in Gauteng.