Continued...

Luthuli's return to active leadership in 1958 was cut short by the imposition of a third ban, this time a five-year ban prohibiting him from publishing anything and confining him to a fifteen-mile radius of his home.

The ban was temporarily lifted while he testified at the continuing treason trials (which ended with a verdict in1961 absolving ANC of Communist subservience and of plotting the violent overthrow of the government). It was lifted again in March, 1960, to permit his arrest for publicly burning his pass - a gesture of solidarity with those demonstrators against the Pass Laws who had died in the "Sharpeville massacre".

The Pan-Africanist Congress, not the African National Congress, had called the demonstration, but in the ensuing state of emergency that was officially declared, Parliament outlawed both organizations and apprehended their leaders.

Luthuli was found guilty, fined, given a jail sentence that was suspended because of the precarious state of his health, and returned to the isolation of Groutville. One final time the ban was lifted, this time for ten days in early December of 1961 to permit Luthuli and his wife to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies in Oslo.

A fourth ban to run for five years confining Luthuli to the immediate vicinity of his home was issued in May, 1964, the day before the expiration of the third ban. Still, Luthuli remained undiminished in the public mind.

The South African Colored People's Congress nominated him for president, the National Union of South African Students made him its honorary president, the students of Glasgow University voted him their rector, the New York City Protestant Council conferred an award on him.

Despite the publication ban, his autobiography circulated in the outside world, and his name appeared on human rights petitions presented to the UN.

For fifteen years or so before his death, Luthuli suffered from high blood pressure and once had a slight stroke. With age, his hearing and eyesight also became impaired - perhaps a factor in his death. For in July, 1967, at the age of sixty-nine, he was fatally injured when he was struck by a freight train as he walked on the trestle bridge over the Umvoti River near his home.