Quotes from Oliver Tambo

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

The A.N.C. was established in 1912 and the S.A. Communist Party in 1921, and so there has been an overlapping of membership all along the line.

Mandela drafted the M Plan, a simple, commonsense plan for organization on a street basis so that Congress volunteers would be in daily touch with the people, alert to their needs and able to mobilize them.

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

It is often suggested that the A.N.C. is controlled by the Communist Party, by Communists. Well, I have been long enough in the A.N.C. to know that that has never been true.

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

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.

It was becoming clear that, from being at the top at Holy Cross, we were at the bottom at St. Peter's. Objectively, this was very good, for it offered us a challenge and an opportunity to grow if we were ready to take it; and we surely were.

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

This uprising of 1976-77 was, of course, the historic watershed... Within a short period of time, it propelled into the forefront of our struggle millions of young people.

We have got to move away from the concept of race and color because that is what apartheid is. We cannot end apartheid if we retain these concepts.

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

The more pressure you bring from without, the less internal pressure is necessary.

To go back means defeat.

Our target is not negotiations, it is the end of the apartheid system. There can be no compromise about that.

We seek to create a united Democratic and non-racial society.

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.

The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody's private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.

Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens... we see them as Africans.

Whoever says that sanctions will only deteriorate the situations of blacks in South Africa does not know the criminal, murderous character of genocide that represents the system of apartheid.

We were very lucky. My mother and stepmothers were on very, very good terms, and so we, the children, grew up as brothers and sisters.

Who is a terrorist? Is it not the person who has been persecuting human beings simply because they are black?

The results showed that Joe Mokoena and I had made history. For the first time in the history of education in South Africa, two African students had passed the JC with a First Class degree, regarded as a rare achievement for any student.

Those who want to perpetuate apartheid also seek to divert your attention to the false issue of communism, to send the entire American public on a witch hunt.