Biography
Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in Mvezo, Transkei, on
July 18, 1918, to Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla
Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people,
Jongintaba Dalindyebo.
His father died when he was a child and the young Rolihlahla became a
ward of Jongintaba at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni. Hearing the
elder’s stories of his ancestor’s 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 to give all school
children “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.
Nelson 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. He completed his BA
through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for
his graduation in 1943.
On his return to the Great Place at Mkhekezweni 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, who introduced him to Lazar
Sidelsky. He then did his articles through the firm of attorneys Witkin
Eidelman and Sidelsky.
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 1948 without graduating. He only started studying again
through the University of London and 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.
Nelson Mandela, while increasingly politically involved from 1942, only
joined the African National Congress in 1944 when he helped formed the
ANC Youth League.
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. They
effectively separated in 1955 and divorced in 1958.
Nelson Mandela rose through the ranks of the ANCYL and through its work
the ANC adopted in 1949 a more radical mass-based policy, the Programme
of Action.
In 1952 he was chosen at 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 hard labour suspended for two
years.
A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Nelson Mandela to
practice law and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South
Africa’s first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo.
At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. As a restricted
person he was only able to secretly watch as the Freedom Charter was
adopted at Kliptown on 26 June 1955.
Nelson Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop of 156
activists on 5 December 1955, 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 Mr. Mandela
were acquitted on 29 March 1961.
On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest at
Sharpeville against the pass laws. This led to the country’s first state
of emergency on 31 March and the banning of the ANC and the Pan
Africanist Congress on 8 April. Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the
Treason Trial were among the thousands detained during the state of
emergency.
During the trial on 14 June 1958 Nelson Mandela married a social worker
Winnie Madikizela. They had two daughters Zenani and Zindziswa. The
couple divorced in 1996.
Days before the end of the Treason Trial Nelson Mandela travelled to
Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which
resolved he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting a
non-racial national convention, and to warn that should he not agree
there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a
republic. As soon as he and his colleagues were acquitted in the Treason
Trial Nelson Mandela went underground and began planning a national
strike for 29, 30 and 31 March. In the face of a massive mobilization 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).
On 11 January 1962 using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Nelson
Mandela left South Africa secretly. 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 briefed ANC President
Chief Albert Luthuli about his trip.
He was charged with leaving the country illegally and inciting workers
to strike. He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment
which he began serving in 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 a secret hide-out in Rivonia used by ANC and
Communist Party activists and several of his comrades were arrested.
In October 1963 Nelson Mandela joined nine others on trial for sabotage
in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. Facing the death penalty
his words to the court at the end of his famous ‘Speech from the Dock’
on 20 April 1964 became immortalized:
“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.”
On 11 June 1964 Nelson 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. Denis Goldberg was sent to Pretoria
Prison because he was white while the others went to Robben Island.
Nelson 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 Nelson 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 Nelson Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee
had visited him in hospital. Later Nelson Mandela initiated talks about
an ultimate meeting between the apartheid government and the ANC.
In 1988 he was treated for Tuberculosis and was transferred on 7
December 1988 to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. 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 the remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment
he had rejected at least three conditional offers of release.
Nelson Mandela immersed himself into 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 South Africa’s first democratically
elected President. On his 80th birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel,
his third wife.
True to his promise Nelson 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 became 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 has been an inspiration to all who are oppressed and
deprived, to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.
