Wilton Mkwayi, 81; Was Jailed With Nelson Mandela

Wilton Mkwayi, 81, who served 20 years of a life sentence alongside former South African President Nelson Mandela for combating apartheid, died Friday of cancer in King Williams Town, South Africa.

Mkwayi helped the African National Congress party fight the system of white rule by founding and leading its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation, for which he was sentenced in 1964 to life in prison. He served with Mandela at the prison on Robben Island.

With the dismantling of apartheid, Mkwayi was released. He was elected to the governing party’s National Executive Committee in 1991 and served until 1997.

Born in rural East Cape, the eldest of 13 children, Mkwayi quit school as a teenager and was a laborer and clerk until the 1950s when he became a union organizer. He became treasurer of the umbrella group South African Congress of Trade Unions.