September 22, 1998 RELEASE ON RECEIPT Press Release Archives		Eduardo Mondlane Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
	Mondlane Release Conference Schedule		Eduardo Mondlane was born in a village in Portuguese East Africa in 1920, the son of a tribal chief. His education began in Swiss Presbyterian schools. A Swiss missionary recognized his ability and took on the responsibility for his education, welfare, and development. Mondlane began his undergraduate education at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, but he withdrew after a year because of the actions of the new apartheid-oriented Nationalist Party government. Protestant missionaries in Mozambique helped him obtain a Phelps-Stokes Fund scholarship to study in the United States, and he received additional support from the missionaries'associates in Europe. Committed to work for the dignity and freedom of his people, Mondlane decided to study at Lisbon University to learn first-hand about the Portuguese government and policies. After experiencing a year of ill-treatment of African students in Lisbon, he received a Methodist Board Crusade Fellowship to study in the U.S. In 1951, upon the recommendation of missionary friends, the tall, charismatic 31-year old enrolled at Oberlin as a junior and began his "American decade", a time of great intellectual and professional growth, raising a family, speaking widely, taking actions on behalf of African peoples, and preparing himself for the struggles to free and rebuild Mozambique. After receiving his B.A. in sociology and anthropology in 1953, Mondlane continued his studies at Northwestern University, where he earned an M.A. in 1956 and a Ph.D. in 1961. In 1956, during a year of research at Harvard University, Mondlane married Janet Rae Johnson from Indiana. In 1957, Mondlane became a research officer in the United Nations trusteeship department. He traveled to Africa and researched and wrote background papers on social, economic, and political developments in the trust territories of Africa. In 1961, Mondlane visited Mozambique, where thousands of his countrymen made it evident that a germinating nationalist movement needed his leadership. Because his position did not allow him to engage in any direct political activity, he resigned from the U.N. and joined the faculty at Syracuse University as an assistant professor of anthropology. He also was involved in the development of an East African Studies Program at the University's Overseas Center for Research and Development. With Tanganyika's (now Tanzania) independence from Britain in 1961 and the strong encouragement of its president&emdash;and Mondlane's friend&emdash;Julius Nyerere, events moved swiftly. In 1962 the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) was formed and Mondlane was elected its first president. Resolved to dedicate his life to the liberation struggle of his people, he resigned from Syracuse in 1963 and made his new base of operations in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanganyika. By mid-year he was joined by his wife and three children: Eduardo, Jr., Chude, and Nyeleti. The armed struggle against the Portuguese was launched within two years. It achieved such success that by 1968 the second FRELIMO Congress was held in liberated Northern Mozambique. Mondlane was re-elected president but was assassinated on February 3, 1969, in Dar es Salaam. The struggle continued, however, until 1975, when Mozambique was liberated from Portuguese colonial control and became an independent nation.