Luthuli, Albert John (1898?-1967), South African political leader and the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Luthuli won international acclaim for his efforts to use nonviolence to end state-sponsored racial discrimination in South Africa.

Luthuli was born in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the son of well-respected members of the Zulu ethnic group. His father, an evangelical minister and interpreter, died soon after Luthuli's birth. When Luthuli was about 10 years old, his family moved to a Seventh-Day Adventist mission in the northern Natal region of South Africa, which is now part of KwaZulu-Natal. The mission offered no educational opportunities, so Luthuli’s mother sent him to live with his uncle in Groutville, a community on the Natal coast. Luthuli proved a sharp student, and he eventually earned an advanced teaching credential from Adams Mission State College, one of the country’s most prestigious schools open to blacks. Luthuli began teaching at the school upon his graduation. In 1927 Luthuli married Nokukhanya Bhengu, a fellow teacher.

In addition to teaching, Luthuli served as a lay minister of the Methodist Church. In 1935 residents of Groutville’s Umvoti Mission Reserve elected Luthuli as their chief, and he assumed the post the following year. Leading the community of 5000 required all of Luthuli’s efforts, forcing him to give up his teaching career. Luthuli became increasingly politicized as he tried to improve Groutville. The restrictive policies of the government, which was controlled exclusively by South Africa’s white minority, frustrated Luthuli’s efforts at every turn. In the wake of World War II (1939-1945), the government further restricted black rights as part of a system that became known as apartheid ("separateness" in the Afrikaans language). Under apartheid, the government instituted policies that controlled virtually every aspect of black life, including employment, travel, education, marriage, and housing.

In 1945 Luthuli joined the African National Congress (ANC)—the country’s largest opposition group—to protest the government’s increasing social and political repression. With his support growing, Luthuli became the president of the Natal branch of the ANC in 1951. As part of his new position, Lutuli began to travel throughout South Africa denouncing apartheid, lecturing, and encouraging nonviolent protests. In 1952 he helped lead the Defiance Campaign, a campaign of nonviolent protest that marked the beginning of mass resistance to the apartheid system. During the campaign Luthuli and other protesters throughout South Africa defied apartheid racial segregation by entering whites-only sections of train stations, post offices, and other segregated facilities. As the protest’s organizers hoped, police arrested Luthuli and thousands of other demonstrators throughout South Africa, overwhelming the country’s jails and courts.

Luthuli’s prominent position in the protest led the government to strip him of his position as chief of Groutville. The ANC elected Luthuli as the organization’s president-general later in 1952, and he continued to organize resistance to the government. Dismayed by Luthuli's growing influence, government officials in 1952 issued the first in a series of restrictive orders that would prohibit him from traveling or lecturing for the next 15 years.

When the restrictions lapsed briefly in 1954, Luthuli resumed organizing popular opposition, and his actions again brought police attention. In 1956 police arrested Luthuli and 155 other opposition leaders on charges of treason. A year later, prosecutors dropped the charges against Luthuli and 64 other defendants. The court acquitted the remaining accused in 1961.

In 1960, Luthuli further enraged authorities by publicly setting fire to his travel "pass book" in protest of the Sharpeville Massacre, an incident in which police killed 69 unarmed black protesters. Luthuli called for a national day of mourning and encouraged others to burn their pass books. As tensions grew in black townships, the government declared a state of emergency and arrested 18,000 blacks, Luthuli among them. Due to his declining health, a court imposed a fine and released him.

For his tireless commitment to nonviolent resistance, Luthuli was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize. When he returned home following receipt of the prize, government authorities again confined him to Groutville. Two years later he wrote his autobiography, Let My People Go. The South African government banned the book and made it a crime for anyone to quote Luthuli. In 1967 Luthuli was killed by a train as he walked along a railroad bridge near his home.