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Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela led the African National Congress, a black liberation group that opposed South Africa’s white minority government and apartheid. Mandela was initially opposed to violence, but after a massacre of unarmed black South Africans in 1962, he began advocating acts of sabotage against the government.

In 1962, Mandela began a twenty-seven year stay in prison. Most of his confinement was spent during hard labor at the notorious Robben Island maximum-security prison.

During his imprisonment, Mandela became a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement among South Africa’s black population and among the international community that opposed apartheid. Mandela rejected several government offers to allow him to leave prison on the condition that he renounce violence. Mandela was released from prison and instantly became an international celebrity.

Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 with F.W. deKlerk, South Africa’s last white president. Their combined efforts ended apartheid and brought about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy in South Africa.

Three years after his release, South Africans of all races were allowed to vote for the first time in a national election. They selected Mandela as their president, giving him 62% of the vote. The same person who was once was a symbol of black resistance in South Africa later eventually because the nation’s first black president.

Mandela’s government was praised for its treatment of South Africa’s white minorities. One white South African told our class in 1996 that "[Mandela] has treated us better than we treated him.” In the interviews I conducted over the Internet in the late 1990s, no South African of any race had kind words for apartheid. Mandela's government had its critics. Crime increased during his term, but the violent war between the races ended. Every South African I spoke with said life is better today than it was before Mandela took power.

Mandela married for the third time on his 80th birthday in 1998. A year later he retired from the presidency. The 400-year-old prison on Robben Island is now a museum.

To cite this page:
Dowling, Mike, "Mr. Dowling's Nelson Mandela Page," available from http://www.mrdowling.com/609-mandela.html; Internet; updated Sunday, April 2, 2006 . ©2009, Mike Dowling. All rights reserved.