Nelson Mandela has spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of black South Africans, enduring trial and incarceration for his principles.
A political prisoner in his native South Africa for more than 25 years, the eloquent and statesman-like Mandela became the human embodiment of the struggle against government-mandated discrimination. His courage and determination through decades of imprisonment galvanized not only South African blacks, but also concerned citizens on every continent. Since his release from prison in 1990, Mandela has reclaimed his position in the once-banned African National Congress (ANC) and has fought tirelessly for democratic reform in his troubled homeland.
With his magnetic personality and calm demeanor, Mandela is widely regarded as the last best hope for conciliating a peaceful transition to a South African government that will enfranchise all of its citizens. “For whites,” wrote John F. Burns in the New York Times, “a man once presented to them as a threat to everything they prize is now widely viewed as the best hope for a political settlement that will guarantee them a future. For blacks, Mr. Mandela has achieved a legendary stature, towering above most other leaders in the way that [Communist leader Vladimir] Lenin dominated the revolutionary cause in Russia, and [Prime Minister Winston] Churchill the fight for England’s survival in World War II.”
Time magazine contributor Richard Lacayo characterized Mandela as a figure who is “unique among heroes because he is a living embodiment of black liberation…. His soft-spoken manner and unflappable dignity bespeak his background as a lawyer, a single-minded political organizer and a longtime prisoner still blinking a bit in the spotlight.” Lacayo continued: “For the many blacks who have begun to call themselves African Americans, [Mandela] is a flesh-and-blood exemplar of what an African can be. For Americans of all colors, weary of their nation’s perennial racial standoffs, [he] offers the opportunity for a full-throated expression of their no less perennial hope for reconciliation.”
Became Political Activist
Nelson Mandela could have lived a relatively comfortable life in obscurity had he wished. In 1918, he was born the son of a highly-placed tribal advisor in rural Umtata
At a Glance . . .
Full name, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; born in 1918 in Umtata, Transkei, South Africa; son of Henry (a Tembu tribal chief) Mandela; married Evelyn Ntoko Mase (a nurse), 1944, divorced, 1956; married Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza (a social worker and political activist), June 14, 1958, separated, 1992; children: (first marriage) Thembi (a son; deceased), Makgatho (son), Makaziwe (daughter); (second marriage) Zenani (daughter), Zindziswa (daughter). Education : Attended University College of Fort Hare and Witwatersrand University; University of South Africa, law degree, 1942.
Lawyer, political activist, and leader of the African National Congress, 1944–. Joined African National Congress, 1944, became secretary and president of the Congress Youth League, 1944, and president of the Youth League, 1951-52; helped to draft ANC’s Freedom Charter, 1955. Appointed honorary secretary of the All-African National Action Council, 1961; became head of Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), an underground paramilitary wing of the ANC, 1961.
Sentenced to five years in prison for inciting Africans to strike and for leaving South Africa without a valid travel document, 1962; sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and treason, 1964; incarcerated in various penal institutions in South Africa, including Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison, 1962-90; released February 11, 1990; elected ANC president, 1991; elected president of South Africa, April 27, 1994; inaugarated, May 12, 1994.
Selected awards: Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding from the government of India, 1980; Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights from the government of Austria, 1981; named an honorary citizen of Rome, 1983; Simon Bolivar International Prize from UNESCO, 1983; W. E. B. DuBois Medal, 1986; Nobel Peace Prize, 1987; Liberty Medal, 1987; Sakharov Prize, 1988; Gaddaff Human Rights Prize, 1989; Houphouet Prize, 1991; numerous international honorary degrees.
Addresses: Office –c/o African National Congress of South Africa, 801 Second Ave., New York, NY 10017.
(later the black homeland of Transkei). As a youth Mandela spent his days farming and herding cattle. After the death of his father in 1930, the 12-year-old was sent to live with the chief of the Tembu tribe. There he impressed his elders with his quick intelligence and maturity. Many thought he would someday become chief himself.
Mandela’s tribal name, Rolihlahla, means “one who brings trouble upon himself”–quite descriptive of the difficult path the young man chose when he reached adulthood. In his late teens Mandela renounced his hereditary right to the tribal chiefdom and entered college in pursuit of a law degree. He became a political activist in short order, and, in 1940, was expelled from University College at Fort Hare for leading a student strike. Soon thereafter, he moved closer to the commercial capital of Johannesburg, where he worked in the gold mines and studied law by correspondence course. He earned his law degree from the University of South Africa in 1942.
Mandela was 24 when he joined the ANC, a group that sought to establish social and political rights for blacks in South Africa. In 1944, Mandela and several friends founded a sub-group, the Congress Youth League, and adopted a platform calling for nonviolent protest and black African self-reliance and self-determination. The country Mandela and his Youth League comrades lived in was then, as it is now, populated primarily by blacks but governed completely by whites. Black citizens were legally discriminated against in housing, education, and economic opportunity; they could not vote, and they were subjected to numerous white-authored laws and restrictions. The Youth League responded to this racist political climate by calling for civil disobedience–nonviolent strikes and “stay-at-home” days in protest of no less than 600 apartheid laws.
From his position as a leader of the Youth League, Mandela helped to coordinate labor strikes and campaigns to defy the unjust laws. Unfortunately, the ANC protest rallies were often met by police brutality. In 1950, 18 blacks were killed during a labor walkout, and again, in 1952, a great number of protesters–including Mandela–were beaten and jailed for opposing the South African government. On that occasion Mandela received a nine-month suspended jail sentence and was ordered to resign from the ANC leadership. Refusing, he moved into underground work because he was forbidden to attend public meetings.
By the time Mandela reappeared in public in 1955, apartheid –meaning “apartness” in the derivative dutch language spoken by South African whites known as Afrikaans–had been taken to extreme ends in South Africa. The government continued to tighten restrictions on its black non-citizens, creating segregated townships and “homelands” where blacks were forced to settle. Late in 1956, Mandela was arrested with 155 other anti-apartheid leaders and was charged with treason under a convenient anti-Communist statute. Freed on bail, Mandela mounted his own defense and practiced law on the side as the infamous “Treason Trial” dragged on and on. Although he was again banned from political activity, he persisted in his efforts for the cause of the ANC. He also found time to marry his second wife, a social worker named Nomzamo Winnie Madikileza. She too was a dedicated activist who supported her husband’s efforts to end apartheid, and would later be jailed herself throughout much of his decades-long prison term.
ANC Banned
Early in 1960, a demonstration in the Johannesburg suburb of Sharpeville turned violent when police killed 69 unarmed protesters. The massacre sparked nationwide outrage, and the government acted quickly to ban the ANC and some of its splinter groups. Mandela once again found himself detained by police without being charged with a crime. Sickened by the failure of the nonviolent protests, he quietly decided that more extreme measures needed to be taken against the white supremacist government. In a 1961 speech before the Pan-Africanist Conference in Ethiopia, he said: “Peace in our country must be considered already broken when a minority government maintains its authority over the majority by force and violence.”
Meanwhile, the Treason Trial entered its final stages and proved to be an effective forum for Mandela’s views. As his own defense attorney, Mandela mounted a spirited justification of the ANC’s goals and methods. He insisted that his organization sought the franchise and equal rights for South Africans of all races, and he maintained that nonviolent disruptive tactics were the only means by which South African blacks could air their discontent. Mandela and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1961, but their ANC had been declared illegal. Although he was free to go about his business, Mandela realized that he could no longer conduct his “business” without breaking the law.
Forced underground, Mandela founded a new group, Umkonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), a guerrilla organization that directed sabotage actions against government installations and other symbols of apartheid. Mandela travelled throughout Africa seeking funds for his cause, at every turn eluding capture by South African security police. The hardships he faced affected his family as well, as Winnie Mandela remembered in People magazine. “He told me to anticipate a life physically without him, that there would never be a normal situation where he would be head of the family,” Mrs. Mandela said. “He told me this in great pain. I was completely shattered.”
Sentenced to Life in Prison
The mass protests continued in South Africa, and the Spear of the Nation claimed responsibility for more than 70 acts of sabotage. On August 4, 1962, Mandela was arrested by South African police and charged with organizing illegal demonstrations. Once again he used his courtroom appearance as an opportunity to challenge the legality of South Africa’s minority rule. His defense was masterful and eloquent, but he was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. While he was serving this sentence, the police connected him to Spear of the Nation and charged him with the more serious crimes of treason and sabotage. After yet another trial, he was sentenced to life in prison in June of 1964.
Mandela was sent to Robben Island, a prison seven miles off the coast of Cape Town. There he endured years of hard labor quarrying limestone and harvesting seaweed, while his wife faced almost constant police harassment at home. In the eyes of the South African government, Nelson Mandela had effectively ceased to exist. Mere discussions of his views or questions about his health were illegal, and he was allowed no contact with the outside world and few visitors. Mandela never lost faith in his cause, however–and the black people of South Africa never forgot their fearless hero. As his years of imprisonment dragged on, he assumed the mantle of martyrdom and became a symbol of a government’s desperate efforts to maintain minority rule.
In 1982 Mandela was moved from Robben Island to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town. The authorities offered official administrative reasons for the move, but most observers agree that Mandela was simply exerting a powerful influence over the other inmates of Robben Island. Mandela spent much of the next six years in solitary confinement, bolstered by a weekly 30-minute visit with his wife. He was offered a conditional freedom in 1984–provided that he would settle in the black “homeland” of Transkei–but he absolutely refused this option, affirming his allegiance to the ANC. And the New York Times Biographical Service reported that P. W. Botha, then president of South Africa, offered Mandela complete freedom in 1985 in return for his renunciation of violence, “but he refused to do so until the government granted blacks full political rights.”
Inevitably, Mandela’s health deteriorated. In 1988 he was hospitalized with tuberculosis. After he recovered he returned to prison, but under somewhat more benign circumstances. By the late 1980s, social conditions in South Africa had become even more desperate, with violent confrontations between young blacks and government forces. The international tide was also turning against South Africa. Many private enterprises and national governments withdrew financial support for the beleaguered nation, and the resulting economic downturn literally forced the South African government to reconsider its dedication to apartheid. Finally, after 27 years, the white leadership heeded the calls from citizens of numerous nations to release the most important political prisoner of the late twentieth century, Nelson Mandela.
The winds of change were also spurred by the ascension of F. W. de Klerk to the presidency of South Africa after Botha suffered a mild stroke. Named as acting state president, de Klerk was elected to a five-year term as president in September of 1989. A reformer, de Klerk released several anti-apartheid leaders. According the New York Times Biographical Service, de Klerk then legalized the ANC and 60 other formerly banned organizations, “clearing the way for Mr. Mandela’s release. Though apartheid and security laws remained in place, he said he was accepting freedom to work for peace.”
Freed at Last
In what was one of the most notable events of the year, the entire world watched on February 11, 1990, as Mandela–thin and gray but unbowed–walked out of Verster Prison. Writing about Mandela’s release for the New York Times Biographical Service, Robert D. McFadden noted that “anyone could see that the years of prison had ravaged only the body, not the spirit; they had, if anything, solidified his resolve and raised his stature as the embodiment of black liberation.” Indeed, cheering crowds met him at every turn in South Africa. Mandela told People, “I was completely overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. It is something I did not expect.” In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, he later added, “I saw a tremendous commotion and a great crowd of people, hundreds of photographers and television cameras and news people as well as thousands of well wishers. I was astounded and a bit alarmed. I had truly not expected such a scene.”
Upon his release, Mandela quickly assumed a leadership position in the ANC, restored to legal status by the government. Within weeks he and his wife were travelling across their nation, calling for a truce in the armed struggle and open negotiations toward equal rights in South Africa. Before releasing him from prison, the South African government had repeatedly asked Mandela to renounce violence as a condition of his freedom whereupon he would always respond that he would not separate his freedom from that of his people. However, within six months of his release, Mandela officially suspended the ANC’s armed struggle. This move alienated him from some of his previously most ardent supporters, forcing him to depend on the degree of cooperation he could both muster and maintain among the country’s black majority.
The Mandelas also embarked on a world tour, during which Nelson was welcomed as a hero and a world leader. In July of 1990, Mandela brought his message to the United States, where he toured a series of big cities raising funds for his cause. He also asked the American government to continue imposing economic sanctions against South Africa until the complete dismantlement of apartheid.
Meanwhile, Mandela and the ANC continued to face enormous problems in South Africa, some of which involved murderous feuds between black factions and terrorist actions in the townships. During apartheid, blacks had absolutely no rights to organize or to vote. As most exiled leaders continued returning to South Africa, the ANC, under Mandela, began the enormous task of negotiating for a democratic, multi-party, non-racial government. It was during these negotiations that South Africa experienced one of the bloodiest crisis in a short period of time.
Clashes between ANC supporters and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, escalated and more than 6,000 people were killed between 1990 and 1991. The turmoil was compounded by hardliner whites within the Defense Force, the police, and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement–militant white right wing supremacists led by Eugene Terreblanche. Terreblanche believed President de Klerk was selling out to the blacks. His group demanded their own Afrikaner state or volkstaat within the borders of South Africa.
Time correspondent Michael S. Serrill noted that the violence in his nation forced Mandela to face a sobering reality: “he may have wielded more moral authority as the world’s most famous prisoner than he does as a political leader in his … freedom.” Serrill continued: “To some South African blacks … Mandela out of prison has become an irrelevant figurehead, a dignified gentleman with utopian socialist ideas that have little to do with their daily lives…. Mandela’s damaged stature has achieved an important aim of [the] white government: to demystify the ANC and make clear that Mandela is only one of many black players.”
Those who figured Mandela, an amateur heavyweight boxer in his youth, was down and out for the count were vastly mistaken, however. In July of 1991, the ANC held its first full convention in South Africa, and Mandela was elected president of the organization. By the end of the year, a number of the political parties–except the militant white right wing, which still insisted on a separate state–took part in a Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). Despite a pact to end factional fighting endorsed by the government, the ANC, and Inkatha, killing continued and on several occasions talks broke down. At one point, the ANC even withdrew from CODESA. A breakthrough came a few weeks later when Mandela and de Klerk signed the “Record of Understanding,” stipulating that a single, freely elected constitutional assembly would serve as a transitional legislature and would draft a new constitution. Though the agreement met several key ANC demands, Buthelezi withdrew his Inkatha Freedom Party from negotiations.
Hopes for South Africa’s Future
Major hurdles were overcome by the end of 1993, moving the nation close to free and fair elections. Notable progress included the formation of a transitional Executive Council, which was charged with overseeing some aspects of government, including security. Meanwhile, April 27, 1994, was selected as the date for the much anticipated, first-ever democratic elections. A few days before the elections, the Inkatha Party agreed to participate after Buthelezi’s appeal to delay the elections was rejected by all concerned parties, clearly leaving Inkatha very little time to campaign. In the meantime, Mandela officially entered the race and campaigned freely.
As polls opened on election day, long lines of people were scattered throughout the country. In the black townships, some waited for several hours in order to exercise the right to vote for the first time in their lives. When the final tally was assessed, the ANC had picked up 62.6 percent of the vote, de klerk earned 20.3 percent, and the Inkatha Party garnered 10.5 percent, with the rest divided amongst smaller factions. Nelson Mandela had unanimously won the presidency of the Republic of South Africa, a nation whose racist government he had opposed and fought most of his life.
On May 12, 1994, after de Klerk’s graceful concession speech, Mandela addressed a cheering crowd with Coretta Scott King on stage with him. Echoing the sentiments of her slain husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mandela’s proclamation was reprinted in Ebony : “This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy–pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops: ’ Free at last! Free at last.’ I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you.” Mandela went on to state, “I am your servant. It is not the individuals that matter, but the collective. This is the time to heal the old wounds and build a new South Africa.”
Battle Not Over
Following his inauguration, Mandela appointed a cabinet that included members of the Inkatha Freedom Party and the National (white) Party. Government officials also held discussions with the right wing Conservative Party and the fascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement, prompting Patrick Laurence to write in Africa Report, “Even if Mandela achieves little more before he retires, he will have won a special niche in South African history as the dignified, white-haired patriarch who won the respect of his political enemies.” Still, in 1996, de Klerk and members of his party resigned their cabinet positions to allow themselves time to organize as an effective opposition party.
Mandela’s national unity government began drafting a program of reconstruction and development aimed at meeting some of the concerns of the long disenfranchised black population. Mandela, cognizant that many years and generations will pass before the deep wounds of apartheid are remedied, cautioned his people not to expect change overnight. Ebony quoted him as saying, “You won’ t be driving a Mercedes … or swimming in your own backyard pool [anytime soon].” Instead the statesman was focused on such issues as health, housing, education, and the development of public utilities, economic stability.
Social conditions in South Africa also scream for attention. Detroit News reporter Jeffrey Herbst suggested that “one of the greatest tragedies of apartheid–the presence of an entire generation uneducated during the 1980s–further aggravates criminality.” He went on to report that the South African crime rate had soared, particularly in Johannesburg, where a wave of violent assaults and carjackings affected business and scared tourists away. The same article noted that South Africa’s murder rate was estimated to be 10 times that of the United States, and an increase in money laundering and drug shipments had occurred. Crime and affirmative action spurred “white flight;” unemployment skyrocketed, and the value of the rand (South African currency) plunged. In July of 1996, a poll showed support for the ANC dropping from 60 percent in 1994 to 53 percent in July of 1996.
Since 1955, when the ANC published its Freedom Charter, the group’s aims have changed little. Its political objectives include a unified South Africa with no artificial homelands, a black representation along with all other races in a central parliament, and a one-man, one-vote democracy in a multi-party system. That much has been accomplished.
Still a revolutionary in his mid-70s with several grown children, Mandela remains ever zealous in his pursuit of rights for all South Africans. Before becoming president, Mandela was much criticized for embracing and expressing his support for such notorious international figures as the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Yasir Arafat, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Libya’s Muamar Qaddafi. According to the New York Times Biographical Service, Mandela retorted to his detractors on this issue, “What concerns me is the foreign policy of those countries, especially in so far as it relates to us [South Africa]. Those countries who are committed to assisting the antiapartheid forces in our country are our friends.”
In keeping with that criteria, Mandela’s cabinet passed a provisional approval of arms sales to Syria, prompting to the Clinton administration, in 1997, to threaten suspending U.S. aid to South Africa. Without question, relations between the United States and Mandela’s South Africa are important to both sides. In a speech in New York City during the summer of 1990, Mandela thanked the American people for taking such an interest in him and his struggle. “You, the people, never abandoned us,” he said.” From behind the granite walls, political prisoners could hear loud and clear your voice of solidarity…. We are winning because you made it possible.”
Mandela, recipient of several humanitarian awards, including a Nobel Prize (along with de Klerk), has spoken of possibly stepping down after his first term. Even if he does, Mandela’s long walk will have ended in jubilation and triumph. As he reflected in his 1994 autobiography, “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter…. I have discovered that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb. I have taken a moment to rest…. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”
Writings
No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.
The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little, 1994.
Sources
Books
Benson, Mary, Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement, Norton, 1986.
Black Writers, Gale, 1989.
Current Biography Yearbook, 1995.
Mandela, Nelson, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little, 1994.
Mandela, Nelson, No Easy Walk to Freedom, Basic Books, 1965.
Mandela, Nelson, The Struggle Is My Life, Pathfinder Press, 1986.
Mandela, Winnie, Part of My Soul Went with Him, Norton, 1985.
Periodicals
Africa Report, November/December 1994.
Business Day, January 14, 1997.
Detroit News, November 17, 1996, pp. 1B, 6B, 7B.
Ebony, August 1994; January 1995.
Newsweek, September 9, 1985; July 2, 1990.
New York Times, May 12, 1980; February 2, 1985; August 16, 1985; November 24, 1985; December 1, 1985; February 1, 1986; February 12, 1986; February 4, 1990; February 11, 1990; November 10, 1996, pp. 1, 8.
New York Times Biographical Service, February 1990, pp. 156-57.
Observer, April 22, 1973.
People, February 26, 1990.
South Africa News UPDATE, January 1997.
Time, January 6, 1986; January 5, 1987; April 9, 1990; July 2, 1990.
Other
DISCovering World History [CD ROM], Gale, 1997.
—Anne Janette Johnson and Doris H. Mabunda
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