Biography of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela's biography
On July 18, 1918, Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in the settlement of Mvezo in the Eastern Cape. Nonqaphi Nosekeni was his mother, and Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo, was his father. When Rolihlahla's father died in 1930, when he was 12 years old, he became a ward of Jongintaba in the Great Place in Mqhekezweni1.
He dreamed of making his own contribution to his people's freedom struggle after hearing the elders' accounts of his ancestors' valor during the resistance warfare.
He went to Qunu Primary School, where his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave him the name Nelson, as is customary for all kids to be given "Christian" names.
He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute before matriculating at Healdtown, a prestigious Wesleyan secondary school.
Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare but was dismissed after participating in a student protest there.
When he returned to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni, the King was enraged and threatened to arrange spouses for him and his cousin Justice if he did not return to Fort Hare. Instead, they fled to Johannesburg, arriving in 1941. He worked as a mining security officer there, and he met Lazer Sidelsky after meeting Walter Sisulu, an estate agent. He then hired Witkin, Eidelman, and Sidelsky, an attorney company, to write his articles.
In 1943, he completed his BA at the University of South Africa and returned to Fort Hare to receive his diploma.
Meanwhile, he enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand to pursue an LLB. He said that he was a lousy student and dropped out of university in 1952 without receiving a diploma. After his release from prison in 1962, he resumed his studies at the University of London, although he did not complete his degree.
He earned his LLB from the University of South Africa in 1989, during the last months of his incarceration. He received his diploma in his absence at a ceremony in Cape Town.
Biography of Nelson Mandela
Getting into politics
Mandela joined the African National Congress in 1944, after helping to form the ANC Youth League, after becoming increasingly politically committed since 1942. (ANCYL).
In 1944, he married Evelyn Mase, a nurse, who was Walter Sisulu's cousin. Madiba Thembekile "Thembi" and Makgatho were their two boys, and they had two daughters, both named Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy. In 1958, he and his wife divorced.
Mandela climbed through the ranks of the ANCYL, and the ANC adopted a more radical mass-based program, the Programme of Action, in 1949, as a result of its activities.
In 1952, he was appointed as the Defiance Campaign's National Volunteer-in-Chief, with Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. The ANC and the South African Indian Congress collaborated on this civil disobedience campaign against six unfair laws. For their roles in the campaign, he and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act and sentenced to nine months of hard labor, suspended for two years.
Mandela was able to practice law after completing a two-year law diploma on top of his BA, and in August 1952, he and Oliver Tambo founded Mandela & Tambo, South Africa's first black-owned law business in the 1950s.
For the first time, he was banned towards the end of 1952. When the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on June 26, 1955, he was only allowed to watch in secret as a restricted person.
The Trial for Treason
On 5 December 1956, Mandela was apprehended in a nationwide police operation, which resulted in the 1956 Treason Trial. In the long trial, men and women of all races found themselves in the dock, which finally ended on March 29, 1961, when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were acquitted.
In a protest against the pass restrictions in Sharpeville on March 21, 1960, police killed 69 unarmed citizens. On April 8, the country declared its first state of emergency, and the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) were banned. Thousands of people were detained during the state of emergency, including Mandela and his comrades in the Treason Trial.
During the trial, Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, a social worker, on June 14, 1958. Zenani and Zindziswa were their two daughters. In 1996, the couple divorced.
Days before the end of the Treason Trial, Mandela traveled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which decided that he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd, demanding a national convention on a non-racial constitution and threatening a national strike if he did not agree. Mandela went underground after he and his companions were acquitted in the Treason Trial and began organizing a national strike for March 29, 30, and 31.
The walkout was called off early due to significant state security mobilization. He was invited to head the armed struggle in June 1961, and he assisted in the formation of Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), which began with a series of explosions on December 16, 1961.
Mandela surreptitiously fled South Africa on January 11, 1962, under the assumed name David Motsamayi. He toured Africa and England in order to recruit support for the armed effort. In July 1962, he returned to South Africa after receiving military training in Morocco and Ethiopia. On the 5th of August, he was apprehended at a police roadblock outside Howick while returning from KwaZulu-Natal, where he had informed ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli on his trip.
He was charged with illegally leaving the country and inciting workers to strike. He was found guilty and given a five-year sentence, which he began serving at the Pretoria Local Prison. He was sent to Robben Island on May 27, 1963, and returned to Pretoria on June 12. Within a month, police stormed Liliesleaf, a covert hideout used by ANC and Communist Party militants in Rivonia, Johannesburg, and detained several of his friends.
In what became known as the Rivonia Trial, Mandela joined ten men on trial for sabotage on October 9, 1963. On the 20th of April 1964, while facing the death penalty, he delivered the following comments to the court at the conclusion of his famous "Speech from the Dock":
"I've battled against white dominance as well as black dominance. I've always admired the notion of a democratic and free society in which everyone lives in peace and has equal opportunity. It's an ideal I aspire to live up to and accomplish. But it is an ideal for which I am willing to die if necessary."
On April 20, 1964, Nelson Mandela gave a speech from the dock.
On June 11, 1964, Nelson Mandela and seven other defendants, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi, and Andrew Mlangeni, were found guilty and sentenced to life in jail the next day. Because Goldberg was white, he was taken to Pretoria Prison, while the others were transferred to Robben Island.
In 1968, Mandela's mother died, and his eldest son, Thembi, died in 1969. He was barred from attending their funerals.
Mandela, along with Sisulu, Mhlaba, and Mlangeni, was moved to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town on March 31, 1982. In October, Kathrada joined them. Mandela was imprisoned alone when he returned to prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery. Kobie Coetsee, the Minister of Justice, paid him a visit in the hospital. Later, Mandela sparked discussions for the last meeting between the apartheid regime and the African National Congress (ANC).
Biography of Nelson Mandela
Release from Prison
He was admitted to the hospital on August 12, 1988, and diagnosed with TB. After spending more than three months in two hospitals, he was transported to housing at Victor Verster Prison outside Paarl on December 7, 1988, where he spent the last 14 months of his sentence. On Sunday, February 11, 1990, he was released from its confines, nine days after the ANC and the PAC were unbanned and nearly four months after his surviving Rivonia companions were released. He had turned down at least three conditional offers of parole during his time in prison.
Mandela became involved in official talks to remove white minority rule and was chosen President of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1991 to succeed his sick comrade Oliver Tambo. He and President FW de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and he voted for the first time on April 27, 1994.
President
He became South Africa's first democratically elected President on May 10, 1994. In 1998, he married Graça Machel, his third wife, on his 80th birthday.
After one term as President, Mandela kept his pledge and stood down in 1999. He worked with the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund he established in 1995, as well as the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation.
Mandla Mandela, his grandson, was installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council in a ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place in April 2007.
Nelson Mandela's commitment to democracy, equality, and education was unwavering. Despite the most heinous of provocation, he never responded to racism with racism. His life serves as an example to those who are oppressed and disadvantaged, as well as those who resist injustice and suffering.
On December 5, 2013, he died at his home in Johannesburg.
