nelson mandela full biography pdf

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela became known and respected all over the world as a symbol of the struggle against apartheid and all forms of racism; the icon and the hero of African liberation.

Mandela or Madiba, as he was affectionately known, has been called a freedom fighter, a great man, South Africa's Favourite Son, a global icon and a living legend, among countless other names. He has been an activist, a political prisoner, South Africa's first democratically elected president, an international peacemaker and statesman, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

As a husband and a father, Mandela sacrificed the joys of family life and of seeing his children grow up. As a young man, he missed out on a normal life spent with family and friends and pursuing a career of his choice, to fight for the cause he unshakably stood for.

Most ordinary South Africans knew little about Mandela during his prison years, as the apartheid government suppressed information, and what was released was biased. Limited information about Mandela was available from the international press, anti-apartheid activist groups and the Free Nelson Mandela campaign.

But prison bars could not prevent him from continuing to inspire his people to struggle and sacrifice for their liberation. Public opinion polls repeatedly showed that he was the most popular leader the country has ever had. As the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group observed in 1986, he had become "a living legend", galvanising the resistance in his country.

He is the most honoured political prisoner in history. He has received prestigious international awards, the freedom of many cities and honorary degrees from several universities.

Musicians have been inspired to compose songs and music in his honour. Major international art exhibits have been dedicated to him and some of the most prominent writers have contributed to books for him and about him. Even an atomic particle has been named after him.

Mandela is a universal symbol of freedom and reconciliation, an icon representing the triumph of the human spirit. During his lifetime he not only dedicated himself to the struggle of the African people, but with his humility, and his spirit of forgiveness, he captured hearts and inspired people all over the world. As South Africans, we owe it to this great champion of our nation to continue to live by his example.

The early years

Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo, a village near Mthatha in the Transkei, on 18 July 1918, to Nongaphi Nosekeni and Gadla Henry Mandela. His father was the key counsellor/adviser to the Thembu royal house. His Xhosa name Rolihlahla literally means "pulling the branch of a tree". After his father's death in 1927, the young Rolihlahla became the ward of Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent of the Thembu nation. It was at the Thembu royal homestead that his personality, values and political views were shaped. Hearing the elders' stories of his ancestors' valour during the wars of resistance to colonialism, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.

After receiving his primary education at a local mission school, where he was given the name Nelson, he was sent to the Clarkebury Boarding Institute for his Junior Certificate and then to Healdtown, a reputable Wesleyan secondary school, where he matriculated. He then enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare for a Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree where he was elected onto the Students' Representative Council. He was suspended from college for joining a protest boycott, along with Oliver Tambo.

Shortly after his return to the royal homestead, he and his cousin, Justice, ran away to Johannesburg to avoid arranged marriages and for a short period he worked as a mine policeman. Mandela was introduced to Walter Sisulu in 1941 and it was Sisulu who arranged for him to serve his articles at Lazar Sidelsky's law firm. Completing his BA through the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1942, he commenced study for his Bachelor of Laws Degree shortly afterwards (though he left the University of the Witwatersrand without graduating in 1948). He entered politics in earnest while studying, and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1943.

At the height of the Second World War in 1944, a small group of young Africans who were members of the ANC, banded together under the leadership of Anton Lembede. Among them were William Nkomo, Sisulu, Oliver R Tambo, Ashby P Mda and Mandela. Starting out with 60 members, all of whom were residing around the Witwatersrand, these young people set themselves the formidable task of transforming the ANC into a more radical mass movement.

In September 1944, they came together to found the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL).

Mandela soon impressed his peers by his disciplined work and consistent effort and was elected as the league's national secretary in 1948. Through painstaking work, campaigning at the grass-roots and through its mouthpiece Inyaniso ("Truth"), the ANCYL was able to canvass support for its policies among the ANC membership.

The political journey

Spurred on by the victory of the National Party, which won the 1948 all-white elections on the platform of apartheid, at the 1949 Annual Conference, the Programme of Action, inspired by the Youth League, which advocated the weapons of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-cooperation, was accepted as official ANC policy.

In December, Mandela was elected to the National Executive Committee at the National Conference.

When the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952, Mandela, by then president of the Youth League, was elected national volunteer-in-chief. The Defiance Campaign was conceived as a mass civil disobedience campaign that would snowball from a core of selected volunteers to involve more and more ordinary people, culminating in mass defiance. Fulfilling his responsibility as volunteer-in-chief, Mandela travelled the country, organising resistance to discriminatory legislation. Charged, with Moroka, Sisulu and 17 others, and brought to trial for his role in the campaign, the court found that Mandela and his co-accused had consistently advised their followers to adopt a peaceful course of action and to avoid all violence.

For his part in the Defiance Campaign, Mandela was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended prison sentence. Shortly after the campaign ended, he was also prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months.

In December 1952, in partnership with Tambo, Mandela opened South Africa's first black law firm in central Johannesburg.

In 1953, Mandela was given the responsibility to prepare a plan that would enable the leadership of the movement to maintain dynamic contact with its membership without recourse to public meetings. The objective was to prepare for the possibility that the ANC would, like the Communist Party, be declared illegal and to ensure that the organisation would be able to operate from underground. This was the M-Plan, named after him.

During the early 1950s, Mandela played an important part in leading the resistance to the Western Areas removals, and to the introduction of Bantu Education. He also played a significant role in popularising the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955.

During the whole of the 1950s, Mandela was the victim of various forms of repression. He was banned, arrested and imprisoned. A five-year banning order was enforced against him in March 1956.

The prison years

For much of the latter half of the 1950s, Mandela was one of the 156 accused in the mammoth Treason Trial. After the Sharpeville Massacre on 21 March 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mandela, still on trial, was detained, along with hundreds of others.

The Treason Trial collapsed in 1961 as South Africa was being steered towards the adoption of a republic. With the ANC now illegal, the leadership picked up the threads from its underground headquarters and Nelson Mandela emerged as the leading figure in this new phase of struggle.

Forced to live apart from his family, moving from place to place to evade detection by the Government's ubiquitous informers and police spies, Mandela had to adopt a number of disguises. Sometimes dressed as a labourer, Politicsat other times as a chauffeur, his successful evasion of the police earned him the title of the Black Pimpernel.

It was during this time that he, together with other leaders of the ANC, constituted a new section of the liberation movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), as an armed nucleus with a view to preparing for armed struggle, with Mandela as its commander-in-chief.

In 1962, Mandela left the country as "David Motsamayi", and travelled abroad for several months. In Ethiopia, he addressed the Conference of the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa, and was warmly received by senior political leaders in several countries, including the then Tanganyika, Senegal, Ghana and Sierra Leone. He also spent time in London. During this trip, Mandela met with the first group of 21 MK recruits on their way to Addis Ababa for guerrilla training.

Not long after his return to South Africa, Mandela was arrested, on 5 August, and charged with illegal exit from the country, and incitement to strike.

Mandela was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was transferred to Robben Island in May 1963 only to be brought back to Pretoria again in July.

Not long afterwards, he encountered Thomas Mashifane, the foreman from Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia where MK had set up their headquarters. He knew then that their hide-out had been discovered. A few days later, he and 10 others were charged with sabotage.

The Rivonia Trial, as it came to be known, lasted eight months.

Mandela's statement in court during the trial is a classic in the history of the resistance to apartheid, and has been an inspiration to all who have opposed it. He ended with these words: "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."

All but two of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. The black prisoners were flown secretly to Robben Island immediately after the trial was over to begin serving their sentences.

In March 1982, after 18 years, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town (with Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni) and in December 1988, he was moved to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, from where he was eventually released. While in prison, Mandela flatly rejected offers made by his jailers for remission of sentence in exchange for accepting the bantustan policy by recognising the independence of the Transkei and agreeing to settle there. Again in the 1980s, Mandela and others rejected an offer of release on condition that he renounce violence.

Nevertheless, Mandela did initiate talks with the apartheid regime in 1985, when he wrote to then Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee. They first met later that year when Mandela was hospitalised for prostate surgery. Shortly after this, he was moved to a single cell at Pollsmoor and this gave Mandela the chance to start a dialogue with the Government – which took the form of "talks about talks". Throughout this process, he was adamant that negotiations could only be carried out by the full ANC leadership.

Released on 11 February 1990, Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected president of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's national chairperson.

The era of apartheid formally came to an end on 27 April 1994, when Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life – along with his people. However, long before that date, it had become clear, even before the start of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) negotiations at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, that the ANC was increasingly charting the future of South Africa.

Rolihlahla Nelson Dalibunga Mandela was inaugurated as President of a democratic South Africa on 10 May 1994. In his inauguration speech, he said: "We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward. We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government."

In June 1999, Nelson Mandela retired from the Presidency of South Africa. But although he retired as President of South Africa, he worked tirelessly, campaigning globally for peace, children and the fight against HIV/Aids in particular.

Shortly before his 86th birthday in June 2004, Mandela officially retired from public life. However, he did not retreat from working for the good of the world – as a testimony to his sharp political intellect, wisdom and unrelenting commitment to make the world a better place, Mandela formed the prestigious group of Elders, an independent group of eminent global leaders, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace-building, help address major causes oh human suffering and promote the shared interest of humanity.

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Nelson Mandela Resource Guide: Nelson Mandela Biography

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Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela at the Gracie Mansion, 1990

Nelson Mandela Portrait Collection. 

Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black  Culture.

The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

©Chester Higgins/chesterhiggins.com

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, a small village on the banks of the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape Province. He was born into the Madiba clan, son of Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Gladla Henry Mphakanyiswa, the chief of Mvezo and an advisor to the kings.

Mandela was the first in his family to receive a formal education. After primary school, he attended the University of Fort Hare, the only Western-style academic education for South African blacks at the time. At Fort Hare, he studied English, anthropology, politics, native administration, and Roman-Dutch law. Due to his involvement in a student protest, he was expelled in 1940 and did not complete his degree at the University. However, Mandela later completed his degree at the University of South Africa.

Following his expulsion, Mandela moved to Johannesburg in 1941. This move opened his eyes not only to an industrial city   but also to a nation of injustice based on racial segregation. For the first time, he saw himself as a black man in a white society. He began working as a law clerk with Walter Sisulu, a prominent black businessman active in the African National Congress (ANC). It wasn’t until 1944 that Mandela joined the ANC and helped form the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). In 1947, he was elected to his first position in the ANC as the Executive Committee.

After the election of 1948, the National Party gained power in South Africa. Consequently, this began a formal system of racial classification and segregation – the system of apartheid. This system restricted nonwhites’ basic rights and barred them from participating in government as a way to maintain a white minority rule. Mandela’s commitment to politics and the ANC grew stronger after this election.

By 1952, Mandela was President of the ANCYL and had drawn much attention from the South African government. Subsequently, he was served a banning order that restricted his freedom of speech and movement. The order banned Mandela from attending public meetings or discussing important national matters with more than one person at a time. This was an attempt by the government to break apart the ANC. As the oppression increased, so did Mandela’s efforts of defiance. In June 1952, he led the Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, where groups throughout South Africa executed various acts of defiance in main cities. It was the first large-scale, multi-racial political mobilization against the apartheid laws. Mandela fought the Apartheid system both politically and professionally. That same year, he and his colleague Oliver Tambo, an ANC leader, established the first black law practices that specialized in cases affected by the apartheid legislation.

The South African government was putting pressure on the ANC, and on December 5, 1956, Mandela’s house was raided and he was arrested amongst 155 other activists and charged with high treason. The Treason Trials dragged on for almost five years and the defendants were eventually acquitted in 1961. During this time, Mandela met his wife Winifred Nomzamo Madikizela when she was 22, standing at a bus stop in Soweto. They married on June 14, 1958, and had two daughters, Zenani and Zindzi.  

On March 21, 1960, police opened fire on a massive, organized demonstration against the Pass Laws killing 69 unarmed peaceful demonstrators at Sharpeville. The country erupted into a state of emergency and numerous activists were arrested. Days later Mandela burnt his passbook in front of numerous journalists. The following month, the ANC was declared an illegal organization, which caused Mandela and other ANC leaders to go underground and form a separate military wing called Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), also called MK. He became the first commander-in-chief of the guerrilla army and began to train to fight and obtain weapons for the group. Mandela came to be known as the Black Pimpernel.

Mandela traveled abroad illegally in 1962 gaining support, money, and military training from various African countries. On his return, he was arrested for leaving the country and orchestrating strikes. On the day of his court case, he entered court wearing traditional Xhosa clothing making a statement of African nationalism. Mandela was sentenced to five years imprisonment for incitement to strike and leaving the country without official documents.

While imprisoned, the police raided the ANC underground headquarters on a farm in Rivonia, and its military commanders were arrested. Based on the collected evidence, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them. This was called the Rivonia Trials, and on October 8, 1963, Mandela and his colleagues were charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the state violently. The trial lasted many months. On April 20, 1964, Mandela gave his famous speech and declared he was “prepared to die” for a free and democratic South Africa. The trial ended on June 12, 1964, and Mandela and the other accused were found guilty of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mandela arrived on Robben Island in the winter of 1964 where he spent 18 of his 27 prison years (1964 to 1982). The South African government built a new maximum security building especially for political prisoners to keep them away from the general prison population because the security services believed that political prisoners would influence other prisoners. At the prison, the prisoners were categorized from A to D, and due to his transgressions, Mandela was ranked D, which allowed him the least amount of privileges. He was allowed to send and receive one letter in six months and have only one visitor. Winnie Mandela visited in 1965 and wasn’t allowed to visit again until December 1968. Mandela eventually worked his way up the prison ranking system and was able to receive four visits a year, and his mother visited before her death in 1967.

He and other political prisoners were assigned work at the Lime Quarry where they dug limestone. The daily routine was to work eight hours a day breaking limestone slate boulders into stones used in paving roads. The work was strenuous and unsafe since the glare from the white rocks caused impairment to the eyes.   

In 1982, Mandela and others were moved off Robben Island to Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison in Tokai, a suburb of Cape Town. Conditions were better here and he was allowed contact with his family. Due to the damp conditions at the jail, Mandela came down with tuberculosis in 1988 and as a result, he was admitted to the Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town and spent six weeks recuperating. The following December, he was transferred to the Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, where he would stay for fourteen months before his release from prison in 1990.

On February 11, 1990, after 27 years behind bars, Nelson Mandela emerged as a free man and his release promised a new chapter in South Africa. The president at the time, F.W. de Klerk, helped dismantle the apartheid laws, including removing the ban on leading liberation organizations and Mandela delivered his first speech at Cape Town’s City Hall on the day of his release. Mandela continued to immerse himself in politics, holding meetings and giving official talks and lectures. He was elected president of the ANC in 1991 in South Africa’s first non-racial election. Mandela and President de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their work towards abolishing apartheid.

On May 10, 1994, at age 77, Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president at the Union Building in Pretoria. The ceremony was televised internationally and numerous people gathered to witness the inauguration speech. During his presidency, Mandela worked tirelessly rebuilding South Africa’s economy which was in crisis from the apartheid, as well as poverty, inequalities, unequal access to social services, and infrastructure.

At the end of one term, Mandela gave his last address to the South African nation and retired from active politics in February 1999. After leaving office, he focused his efforts largely on humanitarian services. However, his health deteriorated and Mandela was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001. Despite his prognosis, Mandela remained active. In 2009, on his 91st birthday, the United Nations declared July 18th, as Mandela Day, in recognition of his contribution to the culture of peace and freedom. In 2010, he moved back to his home in Qunu, Eastern Cape where he received numerous visitors, including U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, South African President Jacob Zuma, and ANC members. Mandela made a last public appearance at the World Cup final, at Johannesburg's Soccer City on July 11, 2010.

In March 2013, Mandela was admitted to hospital for a lung infection. In the following months, he was in and out of hospital. He spent his 95th birthday in hospital surrounded by love and support. Mandela passed away on December 5, 2013. South Africa was deep in mourning and self-reflection and the nation observed this death for 10 days. Numerous memorial services were conducted across the country. His legacy remains throughout South Africa and globally as an iconic figure of Black liberation.

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Biography of Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in the village of Mvezo , in the Eastern Cape, on 18 July 1918. His mother was Nonqaphi Nosekeni and his father was Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo. In 1930, when he was 12 years old, his father died and the young Rolihlahla became a ward of Jongintaba at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni 1 .

Hearing the elders’ stories of his ancestors’ valour during the wars of resistance, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.

He attended primary school in Qunu where his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave him the name Nelson, in accordance with the custom of giving all schoolchildren “Christian” names.

He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where he matriculated.

Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare but did not complete the degree there as he was expelled for joining in a student protest.

On his return to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni the King was furious and said if he didn’t return to Fort Hare he would arrange wives for him and his cousin Justice. They ran away to Johannesburg instead, arriving there in 1941. There he worked as a mine security officer and after meeting Walter Sisulu, an estate agent, he was introduced to Lazer Sidelsky. He then did his articles through a firm of attorneys – Witkin, Eidelman and Sidelsky.

He completed his BA through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation in 1943.

Nelson Mandela (top row, second from left) on the steps of Wits University.

Meanwhile, he began studying for an LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand. By his own admission he was a poor student and left the university in 1952 without graduating. He only started studying again through the University of London after his imprisonment in 1962 but also did not complete that degree.

In 1989, while in the last months of his imprisonment, he obtained an LLB through the University of South Africa. He graduated in absentia at a ceremony in Cape Town.

Entering politics

Mandela, while increasingly politically involved from 1942, only joined the African National Congress in 1944 when he helped to form the ANC Youth League (ANCYL).

In 1944 he married Walter Sisulu’s cousin, Evelyn Mase, a nurse. They had two sons, Madiba Thembekile "Thembi" and Makgatho, and two daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy. He and his wife divorced in 1958.

Mandela rose through the ranks of the ANCYL and through its efforts, the ANC adopted a more radical mass-based policy, the Programme of Action, in 1949.

Nelson Mandela on the roof of Kholvad House in 1953.

In 1952 he was chosen as the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign with Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign and sentenced to nine months of hard labour, suspended for two years.

A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Mandela to practise law, and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black-owned law firm in the 1950s, Mandela & Tambo. 2

At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June 1955.

The Treason Trial

Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December 1956, which led to the 1956 Treason Trial. Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were acquitted on 29 March 1961.

On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws. This led to the country’s first state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) on 8 April. Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency.

During the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June 1958. They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in 1996.

Days before the end of the Treason Trial, Mandela travelled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which resolved that he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting a national convention on a non-racial constitution, and to warn that should he not agree there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a republic. After he and his colleagues were acquitted in the Treason Trial, Mandela went underground and began planning a national strike for 29, 30 and 31 March.

In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early. In June 1961 he was asked to lead the armed struggle and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), which launched on 16 December 1961 with a series of explosions.

Madiba travelled with his Ethiopian passport.

On 11 January 1962, using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Mandela secretly left South Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed struggle. He received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia and returned to South Africa in July 1962. He was arrested in a police roadblock outside Howick on 5 August while returning from KwaZulu-Natal, where he had briefed ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli about his trip.

He was charged with leaving the country without a permit and inciting workers to strike. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, which he began serving at the Pretoria Local Prison. On 27 May 1963 he was transferred to Robben Island and returned to Pretoria on 12 June. Within a month police raided Liliesleaf, a secret hideout in Rivonia, Johannesburg, used by ANC and Communist Party activists, and several of his comrades were arrested.

On 9 October 1963 Mandela joined 10 others on trial for sabotage in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. While facing the death penalty his words to the court at the end of his famous "Speech from the Dock" on 20 April 1964 became immortalised:

“ 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. ” Speech from the Dock quote by Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964

On 11 June 1964 Mandela and seven other accused, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni, were convicted and the next day were sentenced to life imprisonment. Goldberg was sent to Pretoria Prison because he was white, while the others went to Robben Island.

Mandela’s mother died in 1968 and his eldest son, Thembi, in 1969. He was not allowed to attend their funerals.

On 31 March 1982 Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in October. When he returned to the prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery, Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee visited him in hospital. Later Mandela initiated talks about an ultimate meeting between the apartheid government and the ANC.

A picture captured during a rare visit from his comrades at Victor Verster Prison.

Release from prison

On 12 August 1988 he was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After more than three months in two hospitals he was transferred on 7 December 1988 to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his last 14 months of imprisonment. He was released from its gates on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine days after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and nearly four months after the release of his remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment he had rejected at least three conditional offers of release.

Mandela immersed himself in official talks to end white minority rule and in 1991 was elected ANC President to replace his ailing friend, Oliver Tambo. In 1993 he and President FW de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize and on 27 April 1994 he voted for the first time in his life.

On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated as South Africa’s first democratically elected President. On his 80 th birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel, his third wife.

True to his promise, Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President. He continued to work with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund he set up in 1995 and established the Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation.

In April 2007 his grandson, Mandla Mandela, was installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council at a ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place.

Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. His life is an inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived; and to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.

He died at his home in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013.

1. Nelson Mandela's father died in 1930 when Mandela was 12 and his mother died in 1968 when he was in prison. While the autobiography Long Walk to Freedom says his father died when he was nine, historical evidence shows it must have been later, most likely 1930. In fact, the original Long Walk to Freedom manuscript (written on Robben Island) states the year as 1930, when he was 12.

2. have established that there were at least 2 other black owned law firms before Mandela and Tambo.

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Long walk to freedom : the autobiography of Nelson Mandela

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LONG WALK TO FREEDOM The Autobiography of NELSON MANDELA Little, Brown and Company

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Binyam Agegn Yitay

Mandela could not express in a man made pen. He is just simple a world icon, champion of peace and reconciliation. Here is his bestselling book that reveals history from past to present.

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Nelson Mandela the first black South African President elected democratically, is the moral and ethical face of the humanism in the world. His autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (1994) is written after becoming the first President of South Africa. His life involved intense struggle and sacrifice for his nation and humanity. His autobiography is very unique and inspiring to many who are fighting against any injustice anywhere in the world. The form, narration and the style is also characteristic. His life struggle is revealed and the contributions of ANC and his coworkers have received great importance in the book. His legacy is unfolded through this epic autobiography. As a reader one get lost in the past and present times of South Africa. Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom is divided into 11 distinctive sections which symbolizes distinct important phases in his life. His labeling to those life experiences signifies the importance and approach towards those events. The word Long in the title shows the struggle, hardship and sacrifices made by these freedom fighters against the apartheid regime. The adjective in the title "long" signifies many connotations attached with the word as it hits clearly towards the efforts and suffering he endured in his slow 'walk' towards freedom. It stretches the journey of life into long span of time. Humanism is the philosophy that put human welfare at the center and subsides all other religious, political, institutional and other issues. Nelson Mandela by taking the fight of common black citizen of South Africa for the justice against Apartheid regime make him a true humanist. His autobiography which depicts his philosophy and sacrifice thus becomes a document of humanism.

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No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. - Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom Taking its cue from Nelson Mandela, after whom the journal Dalibhunga is named, this "Message from the Chair" encapsulates the vision of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto.

SARJANA: JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA, KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

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From the vantage positions of the blacks, the South African Apartheid State was created on the principle of violence towards them. In fact, the system of apartheid was sustained and nourished through a brutal use of force against this majority by perniciously suppressing and negating their humanity. In addition to this state sanctioned violence, there is also the black-on-black violence that had resulted to numerous loss of lives. In fact the story of this black-on-black violence occupies a central space in Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. This paper, therefore, looks at how violence is used as a narrative trope in Nelson Mandela's autobiography. The paper focuses on how Mandela uses the trajectory of violence to construct his identity on the one hand and the identity of his opponents especially members of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on the other.

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Literature is a reflection of reality and is a mirror of what happens in the world we live. Authors of literature convey various messages depending on their goals for each. Their expression of feelings, emotions and thought about human lives intends to teach society about society. In this descriptive essay as anchored on thematic analysis of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom”, the author’s intent was to explore how one’ life challenges are not only a historical experience for him/herself but also a didactic tool to readers and contemporary society as well. Discussion in this paper demonstrated how well the message conveyed in non – fictional prose plays a significant role as they teach history, social and cultural values, commitment, patience and perseverance. The study reveals that sometimes a success of the present time springs from a painful but enduring past. Keywords— Literature, art, non-fictional prose, autobiography, Mandela, long walk to freedom, function of

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The paper analyzes Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, and talks about his peaceful and aggressive struggle to gain the freedom of his country.

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