Nelson Mandela

Death

Prison

Nobel Peace Prize

Presidency

Release

Long Walk to Freedom

Activism

Early Life & Career

NELSON MANDELA

EARLY LIFE & CAREER

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, also known as Madiba, was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa; the name Nelson was later added by one of his teachers. Nelson Mandela was the son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Madiba clan of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. After his father’s death, young Nelson was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Nelson renounced his claim to the chieftainship to become a lawyer. He attended South African Native College (later the University of Fort Hare) and studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand; he later passed the qualification exam to become a lawyer.

ACTIVISM

In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a Black-liberation group, and became a leader of its Youth League. Mandela subsequently held other ANC leadership positions, through which he helped revitalize the organization and oppose the apartheid policies of the ruling National Party.In 1952 in Johannesburg, with fellow ANC leader Oliver Tambo, Mandela established South Africa’s first Black law practice, specializing in cases resulting from the post-1948 apartheid legislation.Mandela’s antiapartheid activism made him a frequent target of the authorities. Starting in 1952, he was intermittently banned (severely restricted in travel, association, and speech). After the massacre of unarmed Black South Africans by police forces at Sharpeville in 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC, Mandela abandoned his nonviolent stance and began advocating acts of sabotage against the South African regime. He went underground and was one of the founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC. Mandela was arrested at a road block in Natal; he was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.In October 1963 the imprisoned Mandela and several other men were tried for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy. On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, narrowly escaping the death penalty.

TIME IN PRISON

From 1964 to 1982 Mandela was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town. He was subsequently kept at the maximum-security Pollsmoor Prison until 1988, when, after being treated for tuberculosis, he was transferred to Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. Throughout his incarceration, Mandela retained wide support among South Africa’s Black population, and his imprisonment became a cause célèbre among the international community that condemned apartheid. As South Africa’s political situation deteriorated after 1983, and particularly after 1988, he was engaged by ministers of Pres. P.W. Botha’s government in exploratory negotiations; he met with Botha’s successor, de Klerk, in December 1989.

RELEASE FROM PRISON

On February 11, 1990, the South African government under President de Klerk released Mandela from prison. Shortly after his release, Mandela was chosen deputy president of the ANC; he became president of the party in July 1991. Mandela led the ANC in negotiations with de Klerk to end apartheid and bring about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy in South Africa.

NELSON MANDELA, Long Walk to Freedom, 1994

LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

"It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity."

PRESIDENCY

In April 1994 the Mandela-led ANC won South Africa’s first elections by universal suffrage, and on May 10 Mandela was sworn in as president of the country’s first multiethnic government. He established in 1995 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which investigated human rights violations under apartheid, and he introduced housing, education, and economic development initiatives designed to improve the living standards of the country’s Black population. In 1996 he oversaw the enactment of a new democratic constitution.

On 5 December 2013, Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95 after a prolonged respiratory infection. He died at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, surrounded by family. His death was announced by then President Jacob Zuma on national television. Reactions from governments, international organizations, and notable individuals, gained worldwide media coverage.

DEATH