Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in Mveso,
Transkei, South Africa. Becoming actively involved in the anti-apartheid
movement in his 20s, Mandela joined the African National Congress in
1942. For 20 years, he directed a campaign of peaceful, nonviolent
defiance against the South African government and its racist policies.
In 1993,
Quotes
"I hate race discrimination most intensely and in all its
manifestations. I have fought it all during my life; I fight it now, and
will do so until the end of my days."
– Nelson Mandela
Mandela and South African President F.W. de Klerk
were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to
dismantle the country's apartheid system. In 1994, Mandela was
inaugurated as South Africa's first black president. In 2009, Mandela's birthday
(July 18) was declared "Mandela Day" to promote global peace and
celebrate the South African leader's legacy. Mandela died at his home in
Johannesburg on December 5, 2013, at age 95.
Nelson Mandela was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918,
in the tiny village of Mvezo, on the banks of the Mbashe River in
Transkei, South Africa. "Rolihlahla" in the Xhosa language literally
means "pulling the branch of a tree," but more commonly translates as
"troublemaker."
Nelson Mandela's father, who was destined to be a chief, served as a
counselor to tribal chiefs for several years, but lost both his title
and fortune over a dispute with the local colonial magistrate. Mandela
was only an infant at the time, and his father's loss of status forced
his mother to move the family to Qunu, an even smaller village north of
Mvezo. The village was nestled in a narrow grassy valley; there were no
roads, only foot paths that linked the pastures where livestock grazed.
The family lived in huts and ate a local harvest of maize, sorghum,
pumpkin and beans, which was all they could afford. Water came from
springs and streams and cooking was done outdoors. Mandela played the
games of young boys, acting out male rights-of-passage scenarios with
toys he made from the natural materials available, including tree
branches and clay.
At the suggestion of one of his father's friends, Mandela was
baptized in the Methodist Church. He went on to become the first in his
family to attend school. As was custom at the time, and probably due to
the bias of the British educational system in South Africa, Mandela's
teacher told him that his new first name would be Nelson.
When Mandela was 9 years old, his father died of lung disease,
causing his life to change dramatically. He was adopted by Chief
Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the acting regent of the Thembu people—a gesture
done as a favor to Mandela's father, who, years earlier, had recommended
Jongintaba be made chief. Mandela subsequently left the carefree life
he knew in Qunu, fearing that he would never see his village again. He
traveled by motorcar to Mqhekezweni, the provincial capital of
Thembuland, to the chief's royal residence. Though he had not forgotten
his beloved village of Qunu, he quickly adapted to the new, more
sophisticated surroundings of Mqhekezweni.
Mandela was given the same status and responsibilities as the
regent's two other children, his son and oldest child, Justice, and
daughter Nomafu. Mandela took classes in a one-room school next to the
palace, studying English, Xhosa, history and geography. It was during
this period that Mandela developed an interest in African history,
from elder chiefs who came to the Great Palace on official
business. He learned how the African people had lived in relative peace
until the coming of the white people. According to the elders, the
children of South Africa had previously lived as brothers, but white men
had shattered this fellowship. While black men shared their land, air
and water with whites, white men took all of these things for
themselves.
When Mandela was 16, it was time for him to partake in the
traditional African circumcision ritual to mark his entrance into
manhood. The ceremony of circumcision was not just a surgical procedure,
but an elaborate ritual in preparation for manhood. In African
tradition, an uncircumcised man cannot inherit his father's wealth,
marry or officiate at tribal rituals. Mandela participated in the
ceremony with 25 other boys. He welcomed the opportunity to partake in
his people's customs and felt ready to make the transition from boyhood
to manhood. His mood shifted during the proceedings, however, when Chief
Meligqili, the main speaker at the ceremony, spoke sadly of the young
men, explaining that they were enslaved in their own country. Because
their land was controlled by white men, they would never have the power
to govern themselves, the chief said. He went on to lament that the
promise of the young men would be squandered as they struggled to make a
living and perform mindless chores for white men. Mandela would later
say that while the chief's words didn't make total sense to him at the
time, they would eventually formulate his resolve for an independent
South Africa.
From the time Mandela came under the guardianship of Regent
Jongintaba, he was groomed to assume high office, not as a chief, but a
counselor to one. As Thembu royalty, Mandela attended a Wesleyan mission
school, the Clarkebury Boarding Institute and Wesleyan College, where,
he would later state, he achieved academic success through "plain hard
work." He also excelled at track and boxing. Mandela was initially
mocked as a "country boy" by his Wesleyan classmates, but eventually
became friends with several students, including Mathona, his first
female friend.
In 1939, Mandela enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare, the
only residential center of higher learning for blacks in South Africa
at the time. Fort Hare was considered Africa's equivalent of the
University of Oxford or Harvard University, drawing scholars from all
parts of sub-Sahara Africa. In his first year at the university, Mandela
took the required courses, but focused on Roman Dutch law to prepare
for a career in civil service as an interpreter or clerk—regarded as the
best profession that a black man could obtain at the time.
In his second year at Fort Hare, Mandela was elected to the Student
Representative Council. For some time, students had been dissatisfied
with the food and lack of power held by the SRC. During this election, a
majority of students voted to boycott unless their demands were met.
Aligning with the student majority, Mandela resigned from his position.
Seeing this as an act of insubordination, the university's Dr. Kerr expelled Mandela for the rest of
the year and gave him an ultimatum: He could return to the school if he
agreed to serve on the SRC. When Mandela returned home, the regent was
furious, telling him unequivocally that he would have to recant his
decision and go back to school in the fall.
A few weeks after Mandela returned home, Regent Jongintaba
announced that he had arranged a marriage for his adopted son. The
regent wanted to make sure that Mandela's life was properly planned, and
the arrangement was within his right, as tribal custom dictated.
Shocked by the news, feeling trapped and believing that he had no other
option than to follow this recent order, Mandela ran away from home. He
settled in Johannesburg, where he worked a variety of jobs, including as
a guard and a clerk, while completing his bachelor's degree via
correspondence courses. He then enrolled at the University of
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to study law.
Mandela soon became actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement,
joining the African National Congress in 1942. Within the ANC, a small
group of young Africans banded together, calling themselves the African
National Congress Youth League. Their goal was to transform the ANC into
a mass grassroots movement, deriving strength from millions of rural
peasants and working people who had no voice under the current regime.
Specifically, the group believed that the ANC's old tactics of polite
petitioning were ineffective. In 1949, the ANC officially adopted the
Youth League's methods of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and
non-cooperation, with policy goals of full citizenship, redistribution
of land, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all
children.
For 20 years, Mandela directed peaceful, nonviolent acts of defiance
against the South African government and its racist policies, including
the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He
founded the law firm Mandela and Tambo, partnering with Oliver Tambo,
a brilliant student he'd met while attending Fort Hare. The law firm
provided free and low-cost legal counsel to unrepresented blacks.
In 1956, Mandela and 150 others were arrested and charged with
treason for their political advocacy (they were eventually acquitted).
Meanwhile, the ANC was being challenged by Africanists, a new breed of black activists
who believed that the pacifist method of the ANC was ineffective.
Africanists soon broke away to form the Pan-Africanist Congress, which
negatively affected the ANC; by 1959, the movement had lost much of its
militant support.
In 1961, Mandela, who was formerly committed to nonviolent protest,
began to believe that armed struggle was the only way to achieve change.
He subsequently co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, also known as MK, an
armed offshoot of the ANC dedicated to sabotage and guerilla war tactics
to end apartheid. In 1961, Mandela orchestrated a three-day national
workers' strike. He was arrested for leading the strike the following
year, and was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1963,
Mandela was brought to trial again. This time, he and 10
other ANC leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment for political
offenses, including sabotage.
Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island for 18 of his 27
years in prison. During this time, he contracted tuberculosis and, as a
black political prisoner, received the lowest level of treatment from
prison workers. However, while incarcerated, Mandela was able to earn a
Bachelor of Law degree through a University of London correspondence
program.
A 1981 memoir by South African intelligence agent Gordon Winter
described a plot by the South African government to arrange for
Mandela's escape so as to shoot him during the recapture; the plot was
foiled by British intelligence. Mandela continued to be such a potent
symbol of black resistance that a coordinated international campaign for
his release was launched, and this international groundswell of support
exemplified the power and esteem that Mandela had in the global
political community.
In 1982, Mandela and other ANC leaders were moved to Pollsmoor
Prison, allegedly to enable contact between them and the South African
government. In 1985, President P.W. Botha
offered Mandela's release in exchange for renouncing armed struggle;
the prisoner flatly rejected the offer. With increasing local and
international pressure for his release, the government participated in
several talks with Mandela over the ensuing years, but no deal was made.
It wasn't until Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced by Frederik
Willem de Klerk that Mandela's release was finally announced—on February
11, 1990. De Klerk also unbanned the ANC, removed restrictions on
political groups and suspended executions.
Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela immediately
urged foreign powers not to reduce their pressure on the South African
government for constitutional reform. While he stated that he was
committed to working toward peace, he declared that the ANC's armed
struggle would continue until the black majority received the right to
vote.
In 1991, Mandela was elected president of the African National Congress, with lifelong friend and colleague Oliver Tambo serving as national chairperson. Mandela continued to negotiate with President F.W. de Klerk
toward the country's first multiracial elections. White South Africans
were willing to share power, but many black South Africans wanted a
complete transfer of power. The negotiations were often strained and
news of violent eruptions, including the assassination of ANC leader
Chris Hani, continued throughout the country.
Mandela had to keep a delicate balance of political pressure and
intense negotiations amid the demonstrations and armed resistance.
In 1993, Mandela and President de Klerk were jointly awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for their work toward dismantling apartheid. And due
in no small part to their work, negotiations between black and white
South Africans prevailed: On April 27, 1994,
South Africa held its first democratic elections. Nelson
Mandela was inaugurated as the country's first black president on May
10, 1994, at the age of 77, with de Klerk as his first deputy.
Also in 1994, Mandela published an autobiography,
Long Walk to Freedom, much of which he had secretly written while in prison. The following year, he was awarded the Order of Merit.
From 1994 until June 1999, Mandela worked to bring about the
transition from minority rule and apartheid to black majority rule. He
used the nation's enthusiasm for sports as a pivot point to promote
reconciliation between whites and blacks, encouraging black South
Africans to support the once-hated national rugby team. In 1995, South
Africa came to the world stage by hosting the Rugby World Cup, which
brought further recognition and prestige to the young republic.
Mandela also worked to protect South Africa's economy from collapse
during his presidency. Through his Reconstruction and Development Plan,
the South African government funded the creation of jobs, housing and
basic health care. In 1996, Mandela signed into law a new constitution
for the nation, establishing a strong central government based on
majority rule, and guaranteeing both the rights of minorities and the
freedom of expression.
By the 1999 general election, Nelson Mandela had retired from
active politics. He continued to maintain a busy schedule, however,
raising money to build schools and clinics in South Africa's rural
heartland through his foundation, and serving as a mediator in Burundi's civil war. He also published a number of books on his life and struggles, among them
No Easy Walk to Freedom;
Nelson Mandela: The Struggle is my Life; and
Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales.
Mandela was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in 2001. In
June 2004, at the age of 85, he announced his formal retirement from
public life and returned to his native village of Qunu.
On July 18, 2007, Mandela convened a group of world leaders, including Graca Machel (whom Mandela would wed in 1998), Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus,
to address some of the world's toughest issues. Aiming to work both
publicly and privately to find solutions to problems around the globe,
the group was aptly named "The Elders." The Elders' impact has spanned
Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and their actions have included
promoting peace and women's equality, demanding an end to atrocities,
and supporting initiatives to address humanitarian crises and promote
democracy.
In addition to advocating for peace and equality on both a national
and global scale, in his later years, Mandela remained committed to the
fight against AIDS—a disease that killed Mandela's son, Makgatho, in
2005.
Nelson Mandela made his last public appearance at the final
match of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. He remained largely out
of the spotlight in his later years, choosing to spend much of his time
in his childhood community of Qunu, south of Johannesburg. He did,
however, visit with U.S. first lady Michelle Obama, wife of President Barack Obama,during her trip to South Africa in 2011.
After suffering a lung infection in January 2011, Mandela was
briefly hospitalized in Johannesburg to undergo surgery for a stomach
ailment in early 2012. He was released after a few days, later
returning to Qunu. Mandela would be hospitalized many times over the
next several years—in December 2012, March 2013 and June 2013—for
further testing and medical treatment relating to his recurrent lung
infection. Following his June 2013 hospital visit, Mandela's wife, Graca
Machel, canceled a scheduled appearance in London to remain at her
husband's his side, and his daughter, Zenani Dlamini, Argentina's South
African ambassador, flew back to South Africa to be with her father. Jacob Zuma,
South Africa's president, issued a statement in response to public
concern over Mandela's March 2013 health scare, asking for support in
the form of prayer: "We appeal to the people of South Africa and the
world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in
their thoughts," Zuma said.
On December 5, 2013, at the age of 95, Nelson Mandela died at
his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. Zuma released a statement later
that day, in which he spoke to Mandela's legacy: "Wherever we are in
the country, wherever we are in the world, let us reaffirm his vision of
a society ... in which none is exploited, oppressed or dispossessed by
another," he said. For decades to come, Nelson Mandela will continue to
be a source of inspiration for civil rights activists worldwide.
In 2009, Mandela's birthday
(July 18) was declared Mandela Day, an international day to promote
global peace and celebrate the South African leader's legacy. According
to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory,
the annual event is meant to encourage citizens worldwide to give back
the way that Mandela has throughout his lifetime. A statement on the
Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory's website reads: "Mr. Mandela gave 67
years of his life fighting for the rights of humanity. All we are
asking is that everyone gives 67 minutes of their time, whether it's
supporting your chosen charity or serving your local community."
Mandela was married three times, beginning with Evelyn Ntoko
Mase (m. 1944-1957). The couple had four children together: Madiba
Thembekile, Makgatho (d. 2005), Makaziwe and Maki. Mandela wed Winnie Madikizela
in 1958; the couple had two daughters together, Zenani and Zindziswa,
before splitting in 1996. Two years later, Mandela married Graca Machel,
with whom he remained until his death in 2013.
