Johannesburg - “What are you doing here, killing our people? What are you arresting our people for? Why did you take them from that squatter camp when they have done nothing to you?” an angry Winnie Madikizela-Mandela charges at the two shocked white apartheid policemen.
One of them utters a muffled “I don't know” in response to her barrage of questions, while backing away and seemingly intimidated by the the fiery young black woman in front of him - something unheard of at the time.
The reply incenses Madikizela-Mandela further and she continues to shout at the policemen, while wagging her index finger at them and following them to their Nyala armoured vehicle.
The 13-second video shot during one of many township raids by police at the height of apartheid has been shared many times on social media.
It captures the bravery and courage of the woman who many South Africans called the Mother of the Nation.
She was a standard-bearer for the disadvantaged and looked into the eyes of the enemy without flinching.
It was for these acts of heroism that she often had run-ins with the police and became one of the first detainees under section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act in 1969.
Madikizela-Mandela was born at Bizana in the Eastern Cape in 1936. She later moved to Joburg to study social work at Jan Hofmeyr School, where she met Nelson Mandela, who was a regular at the school.
At the time Mandela had already gained popularity as an anti-apartheid activist and lawyer.
She finished her degree in 1955 and was offered a scholarship to study in America, but she opted to work as a medical social worker at the then Baragwanath Hospital, making her the first qualified black staff member to fill that post.
While at Baragwanath she visited townships such as Alexandra, where she did research on infant mortality and also began to realise the adverse effects of apartheid.
She also shared a dormitory with Adelaide Tshukudu (who later married Oliver Tambo), who told her about the work of her future husband and his lawyer partner, Mandela.
Madikizela-Mandela was 22 when she met Mandela, who was 16 years her senior. They got married a year later in 1958 and had two daughters.
Their marriage was rocked by his arrest five years later, and he was sentenced to life in prison for treason. But his detention did not stop Madikizela-Mandela from fighting the apartheid government.
She was placed under house arrest, and at one time was banished to Brandfort in the Free State.
In 1969 she was detained in solitary confinement for 18 months. In 1991, she was convicted for the kidnapping and assault of activist Stompie Seipei, who was killed by her bodyguards in 1989. She was sentenced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.
The Seipei matter is believed to have affected her marriage to Mandela. Putting more strain on their union was a letter leaked to newspapers in which Madikizela-Mandela spewed profanities to a younger lover, believed to be Dali Mpofu, who she was seeing behind Mandela’s back, upon his release from jail in 1992.
She and Mandela divorced in 1996 after 37 years of marriage.
She was an influential politician as the president of the ANC Women's League.
In 2016, a silver Order of Luthuli was conferred on her for her role in fighting the apartheid government.
@lindilesifile