Nelson Mandela spent decades fighting the apartheid system that denied equal rights to Black South Africans. Four years after his release from twenty-seven years in prison, South Africans of all races voted in their first national election and chose him as their president.
Mandela’s Early Life in South Africa
Mandela was born in 1918, the son of a Xhosa local leader. His mother raised him as a Christian, though his father continued to practice traditional African religion. His first teacher gave him the English name Nelson instead of his given name, Rolihlahla.
In 1941, Mandela moved to Johannesburg, where he worked in a law firm and studied to become a lawyer. In 1952, he opened a law practice with Oliver Tambo. They helped Black South Africans defend themselves in courts that enforced apartheid laws. Many clients faced arrest for living or working in places without government permission.
From Resistance to Prison
In 1944, he joined the African National Congress, or ANC, which sought equal rights for Black South Africans. After police killed 69 unarmed protesters at Sharpeville in 1960, Mandela helped organize sabotage against government facilities, initially seeking to avoid deaths, though later attacks by the ANC’s armed wing killed civilians. Arrested in 1962, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment two years later.
At the prison on Robben Island, Mandela slept on a mat on the floor of a small cell and used a bucket as a toilet. The light in his cell remained on twenty-four hours a day. Guards forced him to work in a quarry. Apartheid followed him into prison: Black African prisoners received shorts and sandals while Coloured and Indian prisoners wore long trousers and work shoes.
A Famous Name, an Unfamiliar Face
By the 1980s, people around the world knew Mandela’s name, but few knew what he looked like after decades in prison. Campaign posters showed a younger man or artists’ attempts to picture how he had aged.
Negotiating Freedom
Protests, strikes, attacks, and police crackdowns intensified, and by the late 1980s, leading officials recognized that white minority rule could not last. They began secret talks with Mandela, hoping he could help negotiate a settlement and bring the violence to an end. Mandela had rejected several offers of conditional release, including freedom in exchange for renouncing political violence while the government continued using force. On February 11, 1990, he was released without conditions.
Once out of prison, Mandela urged Black and white South Africans to build a shared future. President F. W. de Klerk, leader of the National Party that had introduced apartheid, had lifted the ban on the ANC and ordered Mandela’s release. The two men negotiated to replace white minority rule with a government elected by people of all races. Violence continued, threatening to derail the talks, but the two leaders helped secure an agreement for democratic elections. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to end apartheid peacefully.
Prisoner to President
In 1994, the ANC won 63 percent of the vote, and the newly elected Parliament chose Mandela as president. Mandela’s government expanded access to housing, clean water, and electricity for people neglected under apartheid. He worked to reassure white South Africans that they belonged in the new country. But most land and wealth stayed in white hands, unemployment remained a serious problem, and reported robberies, home burglaries, and car hijackings increased during his presidency. His government also failed to respond forcefully enough to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Leaving Power Behind
In 1999, Mandela stepped down after a single five-year term. By leaving office voluntarily, he helped establish that South Africa’s democracy could continue under another leader. When Mandela died in 2013 at ninety-five, leaders from around the world gathered for his memorial service. Robben Island, where he spent eighteen years in prison, is now a museum. Visitors can see the cell where South Africa’s future president once slept on the floor.
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Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on Africa.
Cite this page:
Dowling, Mike, “Nelson Mandela,” mrdowling.com. Web. [Date of access].