Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo, also known as O. R. Tambo, was a South African anti-apartheid politician and revolutionist who served as President of the African National Congress from 1967 to 1991 which also make him the longest serving president of the party.
He was born today October 27, 1917 in the village of Kantilla, Bizana, in the Mpondoland (eQawukeni), region of the Eastern Cape.
In 1955, Tambo became Secretary-general of the Africa National Congress (ANC) after Walter Sisulu was banned by the South African government under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1958, he became Deputy President of the ANC and in 1959 was served with a five-year banning order by the government.
He went into exile as acting president of the African National Congress, a party that agitated to end his country\’s apartheid regime till he returned to South Africa in 1990 and turned over the leadership of the party to Nelson Mandela.
Oliver Tambo opened the first Black law firm in South Africa with Nelson Mandela.
During the early hours of the morning of 24 April 1993, Oliver Reginald Tambo passed away after a heart attack. He was honoured with a state funeral where scores of friends, supporters, colleagues and heads of state bade him farewell. His epitaph, reads, in his own words:
                \”It is our responsibility to break down barriers of division and create a country where there will be neither Whites nor Blacks, just South Africans, free and united in diversity\”.
