Diana Mitchell

Mitchell was born in Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia. Her father, Elliott Coates, was a merchant navy officer and her mother, Mary Peck, from Australia,{{Sfn|Law|2010|p=390}} was an actress. Her parents' marriage ended in 1932, and she lived with foster parents during World War II while her mother worked in a munitions factory. She was educated at Eveline Girls High School in Bulawayo, and later at the University of Cape Town in South Africa,{{Cite web |title=About Diana Mitchell |url=https://www.colonialrelic.com/about-diana-mitchell/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230527180320/https://www.colonialrelic.com/about-diana-mitchell/ |archive-date=27 May 2023 |access-date=2023-05-27 |website=colonialrelic.com |language=en-US}} where she studied history and the Shona language. She married hydraulic engineer Brian Mitchell in 1956, and they had three children.

Mitchell's political activism began in 1966, when she campaigned to save a nursery school which was bulldozed by the government. The campaign later expanded to a broader one to improve education for black children. In 1968, she was involved with the Centre Party; although she ran as an independent candidate in the 1974 elections and for the National Unifying Force (NUF) in the 1977 elections.{{Sfn|Law|2010|p=390}}{{Cite web |last=Hollands |first=Glenn |year=1990 |title=BC 969 The Mitchell Papers |url=https://atom.lib.uct.ac.za/pdfs/BC969.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531192047/https://atom.lib.uct.ac.za/pdfs/BC969.pdf |archive-date=31 May 2023 |access-date=31 May 2023 |website=University of Cape Town Libraries}}

After Smith's 1970 declaration of Rhodesia as a republic, Mitchell was involved with arranging negotiations between Smith's Rhodesian Front and militant nationalists. Working with journalists Robert Cary and Willie Musarurwa, she compiled and published a definitive biographical compilation of leaders in the nationalist movement, African Nationalist Leaders in Rhodesia: Who's Who. Although delighted at Zimbabwe's eventual independence under terms acceptable to the international community in 1980, Mitchell was critical of the Mugabe government's suppression of the media and political opposition. She and her husband moved to Britain in 2003. Brian died in 2010.

In 2011, Mitchell's extensive collection of political clippings and papers were donated to the Hoover Institution, which opened them for public access, and to the University of Cape Town.{{cite web |date=26 July 2011 |title=Hoover opens papers of Zimbabwean political activist Diana Mitchell |url=http://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-opens-papers-zimbabwean-political-activist-diana-mitchell |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016135245/https://www.hoover.org/news/hoover-opens-papers-zimbabwean-political-activist-diana-mitchell |archive-date=16 October 2022 |accessdate=9 February 2016 |website=Hoover Institution |publisher=Stanford University}}

{{Cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=Diana |title=African Nationalist Leaders in Rhodesia: Who's Who |last2=Cary |first2=Robert |publisher=Books of Rhodesia |year=1977 |isbn=9780869201527 |location=Bulawayo |language=en |oclc=3500758}}

{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Diana |title=African Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe: Who's Who 1980 |publisher=Self-published |year=1980 |language=en |lccn=88171163}}

{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Diana |title=Who's Who, 1981-82: Nationalist Leaders in Zimbabwe |publisher=Self-published |year=1982 |isbn=9780797404977 |location=Rhodesia |language=en}}

{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Diana |title=Josiah Mushore Chinamano |publisher=Longman Zimbabwe |year=1998 |isbn=9781779031457 |language=en}}

{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Diana |title=An African Memoir: White Woman, Black Nationalists: Diana Mitchell (Mwana Wevhu) |date=29 Jan 2021 |publisher=Independently published |isbn=9798599882619 |location=UK |language=en |oclc=1373309316}}

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{{Cite journal |last=Law |first=Kate |date=2010 |title=Liberal Women in Rhodesia: A Report on the Mitchell Papers, University of Cape Town |url=https://eprints.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/2297/1/History%20in%20Africa%20Article.pdf |journal=History in Africa |volume=37 |pages=389–398 |doi=10.1353/hia.2010.0029 |via=University of Chichester|publisher=Cambridge University Press|s2cid=165351545 }}

• [http://www.colonialrelic.com/ Web version of Cary & Mitchell's African Nationalist Leaders in Rhodesia: Who's Who 1977-1980]
• {{Cite web |last=Burns |first=John F. |date=26 March 1978 |others=[Interview of Edward Sutton-Pryce, Kenneth Mew, Leslie Holland and Diana Mitchell] |title=The World: Four White Rhodesians Talk About The Future |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/26/archives/the-world-four-white-rhodesians-talk-about-the-future.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531193524/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/26/archives/the-world-four-white-rhodesians-talk-about-the-future.html |archive-date=31 May 2023 |access-date=31 May 2023 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |place=Meikles Hotel, Salisbury |page=3}}

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Category:1932 births

Category:2016 deaths

Category:Zimbabwean historians

Category:Zimbabwean democracy activists

Category:Academic staff of the University of Zimbabwe

Category:University of Cape Town alumni

Category:University of Zimbabwe alumni

Category:Zimbabwean people of British descent

Category:20th-century Zimbabwean women politicians

Category:20th-century Zimbabwean politicians

Category:Centre Party (Rhodesia) politicians

Category:20th-century Zimbabwean writers

Category:20th-century Zimbabwean women writers

Category:21st-century Zimbabwean writers

Category:21st-century Zimbabwean women writers

Category:Zimbabwean women historians