Weeks before his wedding, Oliver Tambo was arrested for treason. He was one of 156 people detained in December 1956, was granted bail, and married Adelaide on 22 December as planned.
An ANC meeting
Adelaide Tshukudu, a nurse and ANC Youth League activist, met Oliver Tambo at an ANC branch meeting in Johannesburg in the 1940s. He was a teacher turned lawyer who, with Nelson Mandela, ran South Africa’s first black law partnership. He proposed in 1954, and she agreed two years later.
The treason wedding
The Treason Trial arrests came days before the ceremony. Tambo was released on bail, and the wedding on 22 December 1956 went ahead. The charges against him were later dropped.
Exile in London
In 1960, after the Sharpeville massacre, the ANC sent Tambo abroad to lead its international mission, and the family settled in London. Adelaide worked night shifts as a nurse to support them, and their home at 51 Alexandra Park Road in Muswell Hill became a meeting place for exiles; a blue plaque marks it today. Oliver was ANC president from 1967 to 1991. They returned to South Africa in 1990. Oliver died in 1993 and Adelaide in 2007, and they are buried side by side.