Twenty-five years after the award of the 1936 Peace Prize to
concentration-camp prisoner Carl von Ossietzky, the Nobel
Committee for the second time chose a prize-winner who was
being persecuted by his own authorities.The South African chief, teacher and trade unionist Albert Luthuli was
elected president of the African National Congress (ANC) liberation
movement in 1952. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of
nonviolence, he became the spokesman of a campaign of civil
disobedience directed against South Africa's policy of racial
segregation, and spearheaded several demonstrations and strikes
against the white minority government. Together with other opponents
of racial segregation, Luthuli was arrested and persecuted, and