CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, who won international acclaim as one of the few white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule, died Thursday. She was 91.
Suzman, who was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, fought a long and lonely battle in the South African Parliament against government repression of the country’s black majority and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Achmat Dangor said Suzman was a “great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid.”
For 13 years, Suzman was the sole opposition lawmaker in South Africa’s Parliament, raising her voice time after time against the introduction of racist legislation by the National Party government.
After her retirement from Parliament in 1989, she served on a variety of top public institutions, including the Independent Electoral Commission that oversaw the country’s first multiracial elections in 1994.
She was at Mandela’s side when he signed the new constitution in 1996 as South Africa’s first black president. Mandela awarded her a special gold medal in honor of her contributions.
Suzman had first visited Mandela in prison on Robben Island in 1967, when she heard his grievances about prison conditions.
“She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells,” Mandela later recalled.
Suzman was born in Germiston, east of Johannesburg, to Lithuanian-Jewish parents who had fled anti-Semitism. Her childhood was the charmed one of most whites — tennis, swimming lessons and private schooling.
Suzman was bestowed with 27 honorary doctorates, including ones from Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Cambridge universities.
She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1989 — a rare honor for a foreigner.
