South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman died at the age of 91

 From the AP

In this Feb. 26, 1990 file photo veteran anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, right, holds hands with Nelson Mandela, when Suzman visited Mandela at his Soweto, South Africa, home. The Nelson Mandela Foundation said Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009, that South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman has died. She was 91. Foundation chief executive Achmat Dangor says Suzman was a “great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid.” The cause of death was not immediately available Thursday. Suzman, who was white, was one of the few lawmakers who protested against white racist rule. She visited Mandela, the head of the then banned African National Congress, in prison in 1967 and became well-known for her campaigns against the injustices of apartheid. (AP Photo/John Parkin/file)
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.”

Suzman’s daughter, Frances Jowell, said that Suzman died peacefully at her Johannesburg home. Jowell told the South African Press Association that there would be a private funeral this weekend and a public memorial service in February.

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. A year later, Mandela awarded her a special gold medal in honor of her contributions.

“It is a courage born of the yearning for freedom; of hatred of oppression, injustice and inequity whether the victim be oneself or another; a fortitude that draws its strength from the conviction that no person can be free while others are unfree,” Mandela said at the time.

Suzman had first visited Mandela in prison on Robben Island in 1967, when she heard his grievances about prison conditions.