Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela believed in anti-apartheid, and his goal was for all African people to have equal rights. Unfortunately, he was willing to take lives for the causes he believed in and was brought to stand trial in 1964. He made a statement before he was sentenced to life imprisonment:
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Mandela was eventually freed from prison after 27 years, as a result of great pressure from the international community. After his release in February of 1990, he continued to attain the goals he and others had laid out decades earlier—to achieve a just and equal society for people of all color. In 1993, Mandela and President de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work toward dismantling apartheid. On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the country’s first black president, with de Klerk as his first deputy. Even though it took years, Mandela never stopped believing, and at the end, he achieved his goal. As he once said “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
In the winter of 1964, Nelson Mandela arrived on Robben Island where he would spend 18 of his 27 years in prison. He was put into a small cell, he had the floor as his bed, a bucket for a toilet and he was forced to do hard labour. He was allowed one visitor a year for 30 minutes. He could write and receive one letter every six months. Mandela eventually got the most brutal prison officials to submit to his way. He assumed leadership over his jailed comrades and became the master of his own prison. He emerged from it the mature leader who would fight and win the great political battles that would create a new democratic South Africa.
The Essay on Prison is People
My friend Carol had been nagging me to get involved in the prison outreach program of our church’s social service ministry. After running out of convenient excuses, I finally relented. Something about Carol’s persistence broke through my reservations. A petite woman with curly hair and thick glasses, she had an air of quiet intensity and amazing reserves of energy. So one Saturday morning, I found ...
Nelson Mandela was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in Transkei, South Africa. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. They lived in huts made of mud and floors made of crushed ant-heap. They didn’t have any furniture and slept on mats. When he was five he would look after cattle. He went on to become the first in his family to attend school. A monumental moment in Nelson’s childhood was when his father told him that he must dress properly for school. Until that day, Nelson, only wore a sheet. His father gave him a pair of his trousers. It was at school that his teacher gave him the English name, Nelson. At the age of nine, his father died of tuberculosis. Mandela was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. In 1944 he helped found the ANC Youth League, whose Programme of Action was adopted by the ANC in 1949. By 1952 Mandela and long time friend, Oliver Tambo, had opened the first black legal firm in the country. In 1961 he abandoned peaceful protest and became head of the ANC’s new military wing. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, Mandela was brought to stand trial, for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. June 12, 1964, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland. Mandela was released on February 11, 1990.
In 1994, Nelson Mandela became South African’s first black president
