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Albert Luthuli delivers his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

This Day in History: December 11, 1961
Additional Date: December 11, 1961
Albert Luthuli delivers his Nobel Lecture after receiving the Peace Prize the previous day. Luthuli was the first South African to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. At the time, he was serving a ban under the apartheid government for his role as president of the ANC, which had been banned after the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. However, in order to accept the award in Oslo, Norway, the South African government issued Luthuli with a special ten-day passport. Although the ban was lifted, another (Luthuli's fourth) was imposed in May 1964. Since Luthuli's prize, three other South Africans have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1984, and former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, jointly, in 1993.