Nelson Rolihlahla MANDELA -- "Madiba" @92

Nelson Mandela,
born in 1918, South African activist, winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, and the first black president of South Africa (1994-1999). Born in Umtata, South Africa, in what is now Eastern Cape province, Mandela was the son of a Xhosa-speaking Thembu chief. He attended the University of Fort Hare in Alice where he became involved in the political struggle against the racial discrimination practiced in South Africa. He was expelled in 1940 for participating in a student demonstration. After moving to Johannesburg, he completed his course work by correspondence through the University of South Africa and received a bachelor’s degree in 1942. Mandela then studied law at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He became increasingly involved with the African National Congress (ANC), a multiracial nationalist movement which sought to bring about democratic political change in South Africa. Mandela helped establish the ANC Youth League in 1944 and became its president in 1951.

The National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa in 1948 on a political platform of white supremacy. The official policy of apartheid, or forced segregation of the races, began to be implemented under NP rule. In 1952 the ANC staged a campaign known as the Defiance Campaign, when protesters across the country refused to obey apartheid laws. That same year Mandela became one of the ANC’s four deputy presidents. In 1952 he and his friend Oliver Tambo were the first blacks to open a law practice in South Africa. In the face of government harassment and with the prospect of the ANC being officially banned, Mandela and others devised a plan. Called the “M” plan after Mandela, it organized the ANC into small units of people who could then encourage grassroots participation in antiapartheid struggles.

By the late 1950s Mandela, with Oliver Tambo and others, moved the ANC in a more militant direction against the increasingly discriminatory policies of the government. He was charged with treason in 1956 because of the ANC’s increased activity, particularly in the Defiance Campaign, but he was acquitted after a five-year trial. In 1957 Mandela divorced his first wife, Evelyn Mase; in 1958 he married Nomzamo Madikizela, a social worker, who became known as Winnie Mandela.

In March 1960 the ANC and its rival, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), called for a nationwide demonstration against South Africa’s pass laws, which controlled the movement and employment of blacks and forced them to carry identity papers. After police massacred 69 blacks demonstrating in Sharpeville (see Sharpeville Massacre), both the ANC and the PAC were banned. After Sharpeville the ANC abandoned the strategy of nonviolence, which until that time had been an important part of its philosophy. Mandela helped to establish the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), in December 1961. He was named its commander-in-chief and went to Algeria for military training. Back in South Africa, he was arrested in August 1962 and sentenced to five years in prison for incitement and for leaving the country illegally.

While Mandela was in prison, ANC colleagues who had been operating in hiding were arrested at Rivonia, outside of Johannesburg. Mandela was put on trial with them for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964. For the next 18 years he was imprisoned on Robben Island and held under harsh conditions with other political prisoners. Despite the maximum security of the Robben Island prison, Mandela and other leaders were able to keep in contact with the antiapartheid movement covertly. Mandela wrote much of his autobiography secretly in prison. The manuscript was smuggled out and was eventually completed and published in 1994 as Long Walk to Freedom. Later, Mandela was moved to the maximum-security Pollsmoor Prison near Cape Town. Mandela became an international symbol of resistance to apartheid during his long years of imprisonment, and world leaders continued to demand his release.

In response to both international and domestic pressure, the South African government, under the leadership of President F. W. de Klerk, lifted the ban against the ANC and released Mandela in February 1990. Soon after his release from prison he became estranged from Winnie Mandela, who had played a key leadership role in the antiapartheid movement during his incarceration. Although Winnie had won international recognition for her defiance of the government, immediately before Mandela’s release she had come into conflict with the ANC over a controversial kidnapping and murder trial that involved her young bodyguards. The Mandelas were divorced in 1996.

Mandela, who enjoyed enormous popularity, assumed the leadership of the ANC and led negotiations with the government for an end to apartheid. While white South Africans considered sharing power a big step, black South Africans wanted nothing less than a complete transfer of power. Mandela played a crucial role in resolving differences. For their efforts, he and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. The following year South Africa held its first multiracial elections, and Mandela became president.

Mandela sought to calm the fears of white South Africans and of potential international investors by trying to balance plans for reconstruction and development with financial caution. His Reconstruction and Development Plan allotted large amounts of money to the creation of jobs and housing and to the development of basic health care. In December 1996 Mandela signed into law a new South African constitution. The constitution established a federal system with a strong central government based on majority rule, and it contained guarantees of the rights of minorities and of freedom of expression. Mandela, who had announced that he would not run for reelection in 1999, stepped down as party leader of the ANC in late 1997 and was succeeded by South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki. Mandela's presidency came to an end in June 1999, when the ANC won legislative elections and selected Mbeki as South Africa's next president.




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Web Links

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela
PBS Online presents biographical information about South African activist Nelson Mandela; video clips and excerpts from his writings are included.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/
Nelson Rolihlahla MANDELA -- "Madiba"
The official home page of the African National Congress provides an extensive biography of South African President Nelson Mandela.
http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela.html
Mandela Speaks
The African National Congress offers biographical information about Nelson Mandela as well as online versions of selected speeches and writings.
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/
Nelson Mandela [Nobel Foundation]
The Nobel Foundation presents a brief biography of South African activist and president Nelson Mandela.
http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1993/mandela-bio.html

Further Reading

For younger readers

Beecroft, Simon. The Release of Nelson Mandela. World Almanac, 2004. In the Days That Changed the World series, for readers in grades 6 to 12.
Denenberg, Barry. Nelson Mandela: "No Easy Walk to Freedom." Scholastic, 1991. For readers in grades 5 to 8.
Finlayson, Reggie. Nelson Mandela. Lerner, 1999. For readers in grades 4 to 7.
Gaines, Ann Graham. Nelson Mandela and Apartheid in World History. Enslow, 2001. For readers in grades 5 to 9.
Kramer, Ann. Nelson Mandela: From Political Prisoner to President. Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 2003. For readers in grades 6 to 10.
Mandela, Nelson. Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography. Little, Brown, 1996. An abridged version of his autobiography with 200 photographs. Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla

Benson, Mary. Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement. 2nd ed. Norton, 1994. Authoritative account of his life and political career.
Denenberg, Barry. Nelson Mandela: “No Easy Walk to Freedom” Scholastic, 1991. Biography of the South African leader and the history of the struggle against apartheid. For younger readers.
Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. Mandela: The Man, the Struggle, the Triumph. Watts, 1992. Overall picture of the man and his role in South Africa. For young adult readers.
Hughes, Libby. Nelson Mandela: Voice of Freedom. Dillon, 1992. The personal story and the political struggle of this contemporary leader. For middle school through adult readers.
Juckes, Tim J. Opposition in South Africa: The Leadership of Z.K. Matthews, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko. Praeger, 1995. Considers Nelson Mandela's leadership in the 1960s.
Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom. Little, 1994. Extensive autobiography covers Mandela's birth to May 1994. Also available in an abridged version with 200 photographs as Mandela: An Illustrated Autobiography (1996).
Meredith, Martin. Nelson Mandela: A Biography. St. Martin's, 1998. Admiring but also critical evaluation of the South African president.
Sampson, Anthony. Mandela: The Authorized Biography. Knopf, 1999. A biography that draws on 27 years of unpublished prison correspondence.
Primary Sources

Historic Headlines

South Africa to Free Mandela
The Los Angeles Times published the following article about the release of South African antiapartheid leader Nelson Mandela from prison, where he had spent nearly three decades. Mandela went on to become the Republic of South Africa's first black president. Since the article was published at the time the event took place, it may contain information that has been subsequently revised or updated.
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Historic Speeches

Nelson Mandela's Inaugural Address
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was elected president of the Republic of South Africa in April 1994 in the country’s first multiracial elections. Previously, South Africa had been ruled under the restrictions of apartheid, a policy of racial segregation. Mandela delivered the following inaugural address on May 10, 1994, in Pretoria, South Africa, in front of more than 100,000 people.
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Sidebars

South Africa Confronts Its Past
In 1993 South Africa took critical steps toward a multiracial government and majority rule. In an article for the 1994 Collier’s Year Book, author William Minter outlined the history of South Africa’s social, political, ethnic, and economic landscape. Minter traces the region’s agrarian beginnings, its Dutch and British colonization, and the turbulent 20th century, marked by the beginning and end of apartheid. South Africa’s ongoing struggle for democracy culminated with the election of President Nelson Mandela in 1994.
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Contributed By:
Patrick O’Meara
N. Brian Winchester

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