research paper on nelson mandela

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Early life and work

Underground activity and the rivonia trial.

• Incarceration
• Presidency and retirement

When and where was Nelson Mandela born?

When did nelson mandela die, what is nelson mandela known for, to whom was nelson mandela married, what publications did nelson mandela write.

Nelson Mandela

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• Official Site of the Nelson Mandela Foundation
• The Elders - Nelson Mandela
• South African History Online - Biography of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
• The Nobel Prize - Biography of Nelson Mandela
• Nelson Mandela - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Nelson Mandela - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, also known as Madiba, was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa; the name Nelson was later added by one of his teachers. His father, the chief of the Madiba clan of the Xhosa -speaking Tembu people, died when Nelson was still young, and he was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Although Nelson had a claim to the chieftainship, he renounced it in order to become a lawyer.

Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013, in Johannesburg . He was 95 years old. After his death was announced, his life was remembered and celebrated in South Africa as well as around the world. Numerous memorial services were held, including one by the South African government on December 10. He was laid to rest at Qunu, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, on December 15.

Nelson Mandela is known for several things, but perhaps he is best known for successfully leading the resistance to South Africa’s policy of apartheid in the 20th century, during which he was infamously incarcerated at Robben Island Prison (1964–82). He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993, along with South Africa’s president at the time, F.W. de Klerk , for having led the transition from apartheid to a multiracial democracy. Mandela is also known for being the first black president of South Africa, serving from 1994 to 1999.

Nelson Mandela had three wives: Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1944–58); Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1958–96), who was also a noteworthy anti- apartheid champion; and Graça Machel (1998–2013), who was the widow of Samora Machel , former president of Mozambique (1975–86), and was Mandela’s wife at the time of his death in 2013.

Nelson Mandela’s writings included I Am Prepared to Die (1964; rev. ed. 1986); No Easy Walk to Freedom (1965; updated ed. 2002); The Struggle Is My Life (1978; rev. ed. 1990); In His Own Words (2003); and Long Walk to Freedom (1994), which chronicles his early life and years in prison. Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years (2017), released posthumously, is the unfinished draft of his second volume of memoirs; it was completed by Mandla Langa.

Recent News

Nelson Mandela (born July 18, 1918, Mvezo, South Africa—died December 5, 2013, Johannesburg) was a Black nationalist and the first Black president of South Africa (1994–99). His negotiations in the early 1990s with South African Pres. F.W. de Klerk helped end the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation and ushered in a peaceful transition to majority rule. Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 for their efforts.

Nelson Mandela was the son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Madiba clan of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. After his father’s death, young Nelson was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Nelson renounced his claim to the chieftainship to become a lawyer. He attended South African Native College (later the University of Fort Hare) and studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand; he later passed the qualification exam to become a lawyer. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a Black-liberation group, and became a leader of its Youth League. That same year he met and married Evelyn Ntoko Mase. Mandela subsequently held other ANC leadership positions, through which he helped revitalize the organization and oppose the apartheid policies of the ruling National Party .

In 1952 in Johannesburg , with fellow ANC leader Oliver Tambo , Mandela established South Africa’s first Black law practice, specializing in cases resulting from the post-1948 apartheid legislation. Also that year, Mandela played an important role in launching a campaign of defiance against South Africa’s pass laws, which required nonwhites to carry documents (known as passes, pass books, or reference books) authorizing their presence in areas that the government deemed “restricted” (i.e., generally reserved for the white population). He traveled throughout the country as part of the campaign, trying to build support for nonviolent means of protest against the discriminatory laws. In 1955 he was involved in drafting the Freedom Charter , a document calling for nonracial social democracy in South Africa.

Mandela’s antiapartheid activism made him a frequent target of the authorities. Starting in 1952, he was intermittently banned (severely restricted in travel, association, and speech). In December 1956 he was arrested with more than 100 other people on charges of treason that were designed to harass antiapartheid activists. Mandela went on trial that same year and eventually was acquitted in 1961. During the extended court proceedings, he divorced his first wife and married Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela ( Winnie Madikizela-Mandela ).

After the massacre of unarmed Black South Africans by police forces at Sharpeville in 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC, Mandela abandoned his nonviolent stance and began advocating acts of sabotage against the South African regime. He went underground (during which time he became known as the Black Pimpernel for his ability to evade capture) and was one of the founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC. In 1962 he went to Algeria for training in guerrilla warfare and sabotage, returning to South Africa later that year. On August 5, shortly after his return, Mandela was arrested at a road block in Natal ; he was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.

In October 1963 the imprisoned Mandela and several other men were tried for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy in the infamous Rivonia Trial, named after a fashionable suburb of Johannesburg where raiding police had discovered quantities of arms and equipment at the headquarters of the underground Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela’s speech from the dock, in which he admitted the truth of some of the charges made against him, was a classic defense of liberty and defiance of tyranny . (His speech garnered international attention and acclaim and was published later that year as I Am Prepared to Die .) On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, narrowly escaping the death penalty .

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Nelson mandela and the rainbow of culture, nelson mandela.

by Anders Hallengren *

Equality and pluralism

After 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela negotiated the dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa, settled an agreement on universal suffrage and democratic elections, and became the first black president of the country in 1994. When he entered into office, he was aware of the universal importance of this success, but he was also humbled by the focus on his person as a symbol of international and historical dimensions. After all, during the years 1952-1990, he had made only three public appearances, and numerous people of different nations had contributed to the cause. Indeed, Africa had been liberated from colonialism during his prison years. The truth of the ancient Bantu adage umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (we are people through other people) often came to his mind. And he saw, perhaps clearer than most of his contemporaries, the inevitability of “mutual interdependence” in the human condition, that “the common ground is greater and more enduring than the differences that divide.” The background of the development of this vision is remarkable and diverse. From his African heritage, from his country’s turbulent history, from his own formal education in “colonial” schools, and from his vicissitudes in the confines of Robben Island, Mandela emerged a man with a singular vision.

Solitary confinement. Mandela’s prison cell in the Robben Island penitentiary. Photo: Anders Hallengren

The development of “colour-blindness”

Starting his fight for liberation of the blacks as an aggressive young African pugilist and nationalist in the early 1940’s, Mandela had not always deemed that democratic progress must rest on equality, pluralism, and multiethnicity. What made him later stand out from other South African leaders, and made him finally emerge victorious, was precisely his vision of a state that belongs equally to all its different peoples, nations, and tribes, whether Afrikaan, English, or Zulu. Being himself a leader belonging to the Xhosa-speaking people, he eventually transcended the idea of national liberty, and he attracted Indians, Jews, and other segments of the multicoloured population to the cause. Countering the racist suppression of the blacks, he avoided, unlike many other revolutionaries of the continent, acceding to a basically or exclusively black or tribal liberation movement.

This vision, sometimes referred to as “colour-blindness,” was partly inspired by Marxists, drawing on European ideologies and influenced from abroad. They were internationalists, not nationalists, and fought for a class, not for a race. The South African Communist Party, originally founded in 1920, and the kernel of which was a small group of Jewish immigrants and English nonconformists, was to influence the African National Congress (ANC) in such a direction, without ever succeeding in turning Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and other leaders into members of their party. This influence was theoretical and ideological, based on reading, hearsay, and revolutionary tradition. Through the years, it also became increasingly economic, in terms of financial support from parts of the communist, the socialist, and the social-democratic world — including Sweden, Norway, and India as well as the USSR. Mandela’s party, the ANC, was completely pragmatic in its views of material means, however. It accepted succour and aid wherever it came from, whether from Libya (as it happens, one of Mandela’s grandchildren was baptized “Gadaffi”), Iraq, diamond investors, or multinational corporations, sticking to its cause and never deviating from its course. The Sotho maxim “many rills make a big river” often was in Mandela’s mind. As a matter of fact, and quite contrary to contemporary European and American views, Nelson Mandela and the ANC remained ideologically independent while their financial dependence grew. Nevertheless, as a result of this focus and political imbalance, the ANC became a pawn in great-power politics, which delayed Mandela’s release and peaceful reform in South Africa until the winding-up of the Eastern bloc in 1989-90.

Transcending the idea of national liberty. Courtesy of UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives

The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru

Another source of transnational perspectives and ideas of coexistence in harmony was the likewise oppressed Indian population of South Africa, many of whom traced their origin from the indentured labourers shipped to local sugar cane fields by the British colonial authorities. The confidence and faith of contemporary Indian freedom fighters rested upon the belief in the Satyagraha (truth-power) preached and put into effect by Mahatma Gandhi, a vision that had freed India in 1947. The vision of Gandhi was kept alive and thrived in South Africa, where Gandhi himself had lived and worked for many years (1893-1914). Nelson Mandela’s early encounters with these more peaceful Hindu, as well as Moslem, activists and their ideologies of emancipation seriously complicated his view of African liberation, and a close bond between the ANC and South Africa’s Indian population developed over time. This personal encounter with other people’s liberation movements in South Africa, eventually – almost of necessity, as it were – made the ANC leadership turn multicultural and multireligious, bound together by a common goal and based on that “common ground” Mandela often refers to.

When the present writer attended a function where Nelson Mandela received The Gandhi/King Award for Non-violence in 1999, the prize was presented by Ms. Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi and member of the South African Parliament. She described Mandela as “the man who completed the anti-colonial movement began by Mahatma Gandhi” and, indeed, “the living legacy of Mahatma Gandhi; the Gandhi of South Africa”. Furthermore, India on 16 March 2001 conferred The International Gandhi Peace Prize on Nelson Mandela at a grand ceremony at the presidential palace in New Delhi. “In honouring Mandela,” President Shri K.R. Narayanan said, “we are paying tribute to an unusual hero in the Gandhian mould, who personifies the triumph of the human spirit over forces of oppression.” In his acceptance speech, Mandela recalled India’s support to South Africa during the years of struggle against apartheid.

Penetrating even deeper into historical memory, Mohandas Karamchant Gandhi’s speech in Johannesburg in 1908 makes us aware of the persistent dream that propelled a progressive movement and is as yet to come true on a universal basis. On that occasion, Gandhi for the first time expressed his dream of a free South Africa, a vision that was to echo throughout the century:

“If we look into the future [of South Africa], is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen?”

This speech is quoted in Gandhi and South Africa 1914-1948, a collection of articles edited by E.S. Reddy and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, published in India with the dedication “To Nelson Mandela and His Colleagues”. In that book, Gandhiji is in fact mentioned as “South Africa’s Gift to India.” M.K. Gandhi, Attorney in South Africa, was in a deep sense succeeded by Nelson Mandela, Johannesburg Attorney. Or, as Nelson Mandela said in September 1992, when he had been released from prison and democratic reform was on the agenda:

“Gandhiji was a South African and his memory deserves to be cherished now and in post-apartheid South Africa. We must never lose sight of the fact that the Gandhian philosophy may be a key to human survival in the twenty-first century.”

Manilal Gandhi, the son of Mahatma, remained in his father’s house in Natal, South Africa, and the Indian reform movement encouraged the chaotic but awakening civil disobedience campaigns shaking large parts of South Africa in the early 1950’s, in particular the Defiance Campaign of 1952, where the internal passport laws and other apartheid measures were challenged. These originally Indian-inspired peaceful resistance initiatives were met by violence, and the movements gradually turned underground, where they eventually grew. Finally the ANC reacted by building a military command, the Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), preparing itself for guerrilla war. Contrary to Gandhi, and unlike the ANC leader Albert Lutuli , who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, or Archbishop Desmund Tutu , Peace Prize Laureate of 1984, Nelson Mandela long felt forced to advocate unavoidable revolutionary violence, considering it as a counter-violence or a justified uprising against iniquitous laws. Mandela eventually dressed himself in camouflage uniform and was in combat training abroad (in Ethiopia), as were many other revolutionaries. Banned by the South African regime from attending public gatherings from late 1952 on, he nevertheless had efficiently and ingeniously continued his work as an organiser through undercover actions, escaping the police in ever-changing disguises, one of the favourites being that of a chauffeur. The years before his final imprisonment in 1962, he was nicknamed “The Black Pimpernel.”

Still, the Indian heritage of peaceful resistance was present in Mandela’s mind, and one of his closest fellow-combatants and conspirators was the Indian Ahmed Kathrada, with whom he was to spend a quarter of a century in jail. Among Mandela’s models and teachers, however, Jawaharlal Nehru – more militant than Gandhi and a politician of a practical turn – had become the prominent figure.

We should recall that his Indian friends evoked Mandela’s interest in India at the time when that state was in the process of being liberated from British colonialism. Nehru, who in 1947 became the first Prime Minister of India, had for two decades urged the Indians in South Africa to join forces with the black Africans, and India was the first country to introduce sanctions against the apartheid regime. One of Mandela’s most famous phrases and book titles, No Easy Walk to Freedom, was a quote from Nehru, whose hardships and determination he identified with. While in jail, Mandela was greatly encouraged by receiving the Indian Nehru Prize of 1979, and in his speech of thanks – in his absence read in New Delhi by the exiled Oliver Tambo – he emphasized his indebtedness to Nehru. Their fates were similar, too. When later on speaking of his release from prison, Nelson Mandela said: “I was helped when preparing for my release by the biography of Pandit Nehru, who wrote of what happens when you leave jail. My daughter Zinzi says that she grew up without a father, who, when he returned, became a father of the nation.”

The ancient African source of wisdom

The deeper basis for the development of Mandela’s universal vision and his confidence was his faith in education. More than everything else, Mandela emphasized education as important for his understanding, as well as for the growth of his people and the development of humanity in general. Furthermore, and consequently, he championed the availability of information and learning to all people. Part of his own peculiar schooling for life was, he points out, his long imprisonment as well as the ancient traditions of the Thembu people and his early years in missionary schools. If we venture to approach “the Making of Mandela,” the script that develops is his lifelong education, in a deep and singular way combining the core of African and European traditions.

Born in 1918 in the little village of Mvezo in Qunu in southern Transkei, as the son of the chief Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, Rolihlahla Mandela was the great-grandson of Ngubengcuka, the glorious king of the Thembu people who had died in 1832 before British occupation of the territory. Mandela’s clan, the Madiba, considered itself as dethroned royalty. The upbringing of the son was accordingly, and when his father died, the Thembu ruler Jongintaba and his wife No-England took care of the boy’s education.

The house where Mandela was born, in the Transkei district. Courtesy of UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives

A central concept in this Xhosa-speaking culture, as in Bantu tradition in general, is Ubuntu, fraternity. This implies compassion and open-mindedness and is opposed to individualism and egotism. Nelson Mandela learned how the belligerent and ruthless foreign occupants had destroyed the ancient peace and harmony that reigned among the different Xhosa tribes in the past. The effect was his persistent longing for the reestablishment of precolonial concord, the renaissance of the golden age of Africa. Accordingly, Mandela was always to prefer his clan name, Madiba, as his personal name. When he helped form the ANC Youth League in the Bantu Men’s Social Centre in Johannesburg 1944, the manifesto underscored that the African, in contrast to the white man, regards the universe as an organic whole in progress towards harmony, where individual parts exist only as aspects of this universal unity. There is continuity in this emphasis and in this African heritage, since the essence of the concept ubuntu was to recur and be expanded on in the new South African Constitution of 1996.

On the other hand, his mother Nosekeni Fanny had become a devout Christian and sent him to a missionary primary school (where he was given the English name Nelson). As a result, he was introduced and initiated into African teachings and traditions by his regal mentor, while at the same time he was the first ever in his family to attend the local Methodist school. His education had become pronouncedly Afro-European.

Learning the Western canon

The Methodist schools not only inspired the temperance and discipline of Mandela’s lifestyle but proved to be a training ground for liberation, even more so when he moved on to the Clarkebury School, which had been founded in 1825 under the rule of his ancestor king Ngubengcuka. Without these schools for Africans, there would have been neither transfer of power nor any black presidency, Mandela has pointed out.

He advanced to the all-British Healdtown High School, where the principal was a descendant of Lord Wellington, and then to the South African Native College at Fort Hare. There he encountered teachers who made an impression for life: Prof. Z.K. Matthews, the first black pupil to graduate from the college and a relative of Mandela; and the headmaster Alexander Kerr, who drilled the students in English literature. Matthews was to produce the ANC Freedom Charter. Kerr made the pupils see the relevance of classical European literature in a contemporary African context and got Mandela and his classmates to quote English poets wherever they went. Mandela was forever to praise his teachers, and these school experiences are part and parcel of the stress on education in the ANC Program of Action of 1949, which, in its basic aims, established the educational means and the cultural ends of liberation:

– To unite the cultural with the educational and national struggle; – To establish a national academy of arts and sciences.

After Healdtown followed studies in law and social sciences at Witwaterstand University in 1943-49. These were never officially finished but were taken up again when, as with some other prisoners, he was later allowed to study through correspondence at the University of South Africa and, in 1980, at London University. In fact, the real school for life started when he was arrested in 1962, and indeed this is literally true, since he spent the next thirty years studying and teaching.

Robben Island University

Capetown seen from the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island. Photo: Anders Hallengren

Robben Island became a campus for political prisoners. They had to work outdoors in an isolated lime quarry, where, when left to themselves in mine shafts, they discussed their different views and taught each other what they knew, year after year. Mandela wanted the spirit of a university to reign, and regular lectures were arranged in secrecy. Thus, the prison would be called ‘The Robben Island University’ or later, ‘Nelson Mandela University’. From debates with prisoners and white warders through the years, Mandela grew to a widened ideological awareness from which he would draw when arguing with the government on a new South African constitution. In particular, he studied Afrikaans and learnt to understand the mind-set of the Boer minority through discussions with warders and staff. Mandela identified with these descendants of Dutch seventeenth-century immigrants and saw that he himself, under other circumstances, could have taken views similar to theirs. And he always appreciated their fight against the English in the Boer War, which seemed partly to parallel and herald his own fight against oppression. From this understanding, Mandela’s remarkable spirit of reconciliation was drawn, when Africans and Afrikaners finally formed a coalition government.

Mandela saw historical connections in all present events, and he knew that the British had imprisoned Xhosa chiefs at Robben Island already in the early nineteenth century. These ancestors and predecessors, first and foremost among them the ruler Makanna, whose warriors had almost conquered the English at Grahamstown in 1819, made him feel the long and strong line behind him, pressing and urging him onwards.

Xhosa chiefs imprisoned at Robben Island in the 19th century. Apart from the Anglican Church, there was also a leper colony on the island. Wangermann engraving from 1868 in the South African Library/Robben Island Museum

As times went by, the prisoners found more and more ways of communicating with each other, and the interchange of ideas and knowledge grew. They formed a motley company, where the variety proved to be a great asset to them all. There was the famous South African poet Dennis Brutus, a constant source of inspiration. There were the most foul-mouthed felons as well as an intellectual elite. As important as the presence of African culture, however, was the society of dead English poets.

Shakespeare the revolutionary

If Africa was the source of their illumination, European literature served as a propelling dynamo for their nerve. Of particular pertinence was William Shakespeare, who was constantly quoted and discussed. Were they not wronged and deceived by a criminal ruler as had been Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark? The subject is of a treacherous Macbeth, and like Macbeth was not the South African regime doomed to destruction? Or, were they not rightfully conspiring against a despotic Julius Caesar? Did not the future rest upon them? Did they really have the guts to shoulder their responsibility? Already an ANC Youth League flyer of 1944 had concluded in the summoning words of Julius Caesar:

The fault … is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

The Bible and Shakespeare: the missionary schools had been effective. The Pan African Congress President Robert Sobukwe had translated Shakespeare’s Macbeth into Zulu, just as Tanzania’s liberator Julius Nyerere had translated Julius Caesar (for whom he was named) into Swahili. Shakespeare was an active part in the political play. When Harold Macmillan, the conservative premier of England, had delivered a speech in Capetown in 1960, a newspaper cartoon pictured him afterwards with a caption picked from Julius Caesar:

O! pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.

Mandela, who always forgave but never forgot, was to refer to this political cartoon when he spoke in London in 1996. In jail, Mandela’s extraordinary memory was a mine, and to him, Shakespeare was The Writer. While in custody, a subject of debate could be whether George Bernard Shaw could measure up to Shakespeare. When Mandela was waiting for the final verdict after the extended legal proceedings, and was prepared to be sentenced to death, Shakespeare’s counsel in Measure for Measure was a source of courage:

Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter.

Unlike the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavadgita, or Das Kapital by Karl Marx, Shakespeare was a common denominator for the prisoners at Robben Island. Only a few of them were Christian believers; a few were Moslems or Hindus; a few, communists; and their origins were different. They all knew Shakespeare, however. Furthermore, from the point of view of the penitentiary authorities, four-hundred-year-old Elizabethan dramas were not considered dangerous reading. But Shakespeare was profoundly political and always had something of acute importance to say. Militant passages drawn from Coriolanus or Henry V excited them, and Julius Caesar stirred them to rebellion. They knew their destiny, and Mandela’s favourite passage read:

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Free to study classical drama, the prisoners at Robben Island staged a more than two-thousand-year-old Greek tragedy, the Antigone by Sophocles, in which earthly power is challenged with reference to a higher law. In that production, which was presented under lock and key, Mandela played the part of Creon, the tyrant.

The lime quarry at Robben Island where prisoners taught each other, recited poems and presented lectures. Due to the extreme light and dust, most prisoners suffered from “snow blindness”. Nelson Mandela had to undergo surgery to restore the lachrymal ducts of his chronically inflamed eyes and to this day is blinded by flashlights. Photo: Anders Hallengren

In fact, Mandela began thinking of political organization in terms of dramaturgy. In late June 1976, he noted: “It is often desirable for one not to describe events, but to put the reader in the atmosphere in which the whole drama was played out right inside the theatre, so that he can see with his own eyes the actual stage, all the actors and their costumes, follow their movements, listen to what they say and sing, and to study the facial expressions and the spontaneous reaction of the audience as the drama unfolds.” Thabo Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, Neville Alexander, and all the others were inspired by words that clearly expressed their thoughts and notions, and at once these became tools in a revolutionary process and cutting rejoinders on a political scene.

From Henley to Heaney

Another source of encouragement was the words of a Victorian English poet, William Ernest Henley (1849-1903). Decade after decade, the unforgettable lines of the poem Invictus, “unconquerable,” were on Mandela’s lips:

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

At Robben Island, Mandela recited this poem and taught other prisoners these defiant lines; reading such words “puts life in you”, Mandela says. From the British philosopher Bertrand Russell , who had been jailed for his protests against nuclear weapons, Mandela had drawn the arguments of defiance, when conscience and civil laws do not agree. From the Russian novelist and idealist Lev Tolstoy, Kathrada and Mandela got similar support. At times, they also identified with the endless waiting of the protagonists in Samuel Beckett ‘s play Waiting for Godot.

Prisoners crushing stone at the Robben Island B-Section courtyard. Courtesy of UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives

This literary heritage came with an awareness of the blackness derived from the same source – an often-discussed paradox: they were fighting foreign rule with foreign maxims. Among Xhosa poets, Mandela’s favourite was Krune Mkwayi (Mqhayi), whose haunting lament to the Prince of Wales in 1925 has been translated into English by Robert Mshengu Kavanagh:

You sent us the truth, denied us the truth; You sent us the life, deprived us of life; You sent us the light, we sit in the dark, Shivering, benighted in the bright noonday sun.

They were also heartened by the existence of contemporary South African authors like Nadine Gordimer , a devoted supporter. But when they were released and a new government was formed, in which prisoners were transformed into ministers of state, they still quoted English poetry, such as the lines of the contemporary Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney :

The longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

The liberation of faith

In December 1999, the Parliament of the World’s Religions assembled for the third time since 1893, this time in Capetown. Mandela, who was scheduled to go to the United States, changed his itinerary, anxious to attend. He considered the event of utmost importance. He also had something he wanted to say. In his concluding speech, delivered on December 5, he pointed out the importance of religion to the liberation of his country and his own indebtedness, countering the propaganda that had for half a century pictured him as a godless infidel:

“In our country, my generation is the product of religious education. We grew up at a time when the government of this country owed its duty only to whites, a minority of less than fifteen percent. They took no interest whatsoever in our education. It was religious institutions, whether Christian, Moslem, Hindu, or Jewish, in the context of our country; they are the people who bought land, who built schools, who employed teachers and paid them. Without church, without religious institutions, I would never have been here today. It was for that reason, that when I was ready to go to the United States on the first of this month, an engagement which had been arranged for quite some time, when my comrade, Ibrahim, told me about this occasion, I said: I will change my own itinerary, so I will have the opportunity of appearing here. But I must also add, that I appreciate the importance of religion. Apart from the background I have given you, you have to have been in a South African jail under apartheid, where you can see a cruelty of human beings to others in a naked form. But it was again religious institutions, Hindus, Moslems, leaders of the Jewish faith, Christians, it was them who gave us the hope that one day, we would come out, we would return. And in prison, the religious institutions, raised funds for our children, who were arrested in thousands and thrown into jail, and many of them one day left prison at a high level of education, because of this support we got from religious institutions. And that is why we so respect religious institutions. And we try as much as we can to read the literature, which outlines the fundamental principles of human behaviour. And, like the Bhagadgita, the Qur’an, the Bible, and other important religious documents. And I say this, so you should understand, that the propaganda that has been made for example about the liberation movement is completely untrue. Because religion was one of the motivating factors in everything that we did.”

Mandela also looked onwards. Concerning the prospects of the twenty-first century, he pointed out: “No less than in any other period of history, religion will have a crucial role to play in guiding and inspiring humanity to meet the enormous challenges that we face.”

The rainbow government

In conclusion, the outlook and horizon of Mandela and his sympathisers, who were to form the ideological centre of the new administration of 1994, was stamped by East and West, by European and Asian, as well as genuine African influences. This eclecticism cohered and interacted with the cultural variety of their country and their different origins, which propelled their joint endeavours. The final outcome was the Rainbow Nation, the most multiethnic government ever formed.

Successfully curbing and harnessing the indlovu ayipatha , the dangerous elephant in the shape of the apartheid regime, the rebels finally reached their goal and settled the dispute between Africans and Afrikaners. In achieving this, Mandela agitated against black domination. He did not argue for a turning back to a glorious African society of bygone times but called for a completely new kind of state, a multiethnic democracy without match, constituted by a manifold of cultures having equal rights.

Thus, the ANC leadership, as reorganized when Mandela was released in 1990 and could officially take on command, consisted of a cross section of races, including seven Indians, seven “Coloureds,” and seven whites. Likewise, and in harmony with this, a broad cultural and political basis marked the government of 1994. Ministers of state were blacks, whites, Indians, Coloureds, Muslims, Christians, communists, liberals, conservatives. Apart from three Indian Muslims, there were two Hindus in Mandela’s government. Never had such a cabinet been seen in Africa or elsewhere. Many prominent posts were occupied by neither Africans nor by Afrikaners: there were Dullah Omar, Minister of Justice; the Minister of Water Kader Asmal; the Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel … all widening the arch of the rainbow government.

The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex. Photo: Anders Hallengren

This was the realization of a political program outlined almost half a century earlier. The date can be determined with some certainty. In “The Programme of Action: Statement of Policy Adopted at the ANC Annual Conference 17 December 1949,” there is hardly a trace of the future multicultural view. In The Freedom Charter, however, adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955, the ideology is emerging:

“The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex … All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights! … Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;”

The idea is explicit but not yet fully developed in Mandela’s speech for the defence from the dock at the Rivonia Trial in 1963, where he emphasized, “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.” In his speech in Harlem, New York, in June 1990, the recently discharged prisoner repeated these words, adding, “Death to racism! Glory to the sisterhood and brotherhood of peoples throughout the world!” The basic concept of ubuntu had by then been expanded beyond all limits of nation, race, faith and gender.

The deed and document of this ideology is the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, one of the most modern and radical in the world regarding human rights. It includes an extensive Bill of Rights (Ch. 2) where the numerous paragraphs on equality stand out, for example, “The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.” In Ch. 1, “Founding Provisions,” the official languages are enumerated; all are permitted for national government and provincial government use: “The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.”

It also states that the president determines the national anthem of the Republic by proclamation. Such proclamation had already occurred. Today, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, the old song of the revolutionaries, sang by Mandela and his comrades decade after decade, echoes throughout the republic in its chorus of equal tongues. The first line concludes the Preamble of the Constitution:

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso God se‘n Suid-Afrika Mudzimu fhatutshedza Afurika Hosi katekisa Afrika God bless South Africa.

Educational goals

The Constitution, which is also supplemented by an Action Plan, stresses the importance of education, mentioning this already in the Bill of Rights:

“Everyone has the right – a. to a basic education, including adult basic education; and b. to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.”

Again, the Constitution of 1996 can be seen as the fulfilment of the ANC Freedom Charter of 1955:

“All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs . . .  The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace; Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit; Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan.”

In this spirit, people today may enter The Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island Museum Heritage Services (and its iconic museum building completed in December 2001) and go by boat to the penitentiary which Mandela turned into a university. At Robben Island, we also find the model Robben Island Primary School, a school of integration and international awareness.

A school where the African past is always present. Robben Island Primary School serves as a model school for integration and international awareness. Photo: Anders Hallengren

What’s in a name?

Mandela never wanted places and things to be named after him. The few exceptions are schools and educational institutions, such as the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban and Dr. Nelson Mandela High School in the Western Cape; or, to look abroad, ‘Nelson Mandela School’ in the German Democratic Republic, founded in 1984, and Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs in Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

A significant and very telling feature, however, witnessing his care for the future generations, is the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, established when President Nelson Mandela pledged one-third of his salary for five years.

Thus, we see how one man’s remarkable life has reached its fulfillment and has blossomed into a national vision. Inspired by myriad influences, taking the best from both his native heritage, from the example of foreign freedom movements, and even from the history and literature of his oppressors, Nelson Mandela forged a vision of humanity that encompasses all peoples and that sets the hallmark for the rest of the world.

When the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 1993 to Nelson R. Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk , it was pointed out that their achievement was made by “looking ahead to South African reconciliation instead of back at the deep wounds of the past.” The committee also observed that South Africa has been the very symbol of racially conditioned suppression, and that the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime accordingly “points the way to the peaceful resolution of similar deep-rooted conflicts elsewhere in the world.”

In his Nobel Lecture, Nelson Mandela referred to the organic world-view expressed already in the manifesto of 1944, calling himself a mere representative of the millions of people across the globe who “recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all;” which is the essence of ubuntu philosophy universally applied.

* Anders Hallengren (1950–2024) was an associate professor and research fellow in the Dept. of History of Literature and the History of Ideas at Stockholm University. He served as consulting editor for literature at Nobelprize.org.

As a travelling journalist of international affairs in the 1980s and the 1990s, Anders Hallengren saw several African leaders, presidents as well as revolutionaries, including Nelson Mandela and Alfred Nzo, former General Secretary of the ANC. In 1984, Hallengren published a book on the postcolonial tug-of-war over Africa (Cuba in Africa: A Turning Point in Great-Power Politics – Decolonization and Détente in Conflict).

He has been a visiting fellow in the Dept. of History at Harvard University, and a visiting professor in the Dept. of Philosophy, University of Hawaii. Dr. Hallengren has lectured on human rights history at the Indira Gandhi Centre in New Delhi, as well as at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. For many years he served as a connection and advisor of the American-Russian Transnational Institute.

First published 11 September 2001

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Nelson Mandela: Courage and Conviction—The Making of a Leader

• First Online: 29 April 2020

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• Dennis Smith 3  

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This chapter asks how we can discover and interpret the part played by Mandela’s long imprisonment in his own personal and political development and in shaping his contribution to the struggle of the African National Congress (ANC) and the townships to overthrow the constraints of apartheid. How did the long campaign to ‘free Nelson Mandela’ and Mandela’s own development within the context of his arduous imprisonment combine to build his influence and shape his approach as the ANC’s leader and the nation’s president after his release? The objective of this chapter is not to arrive at some irrefutable ‘answer’ to the problems posed here but to identify the agenda of issues that his case presents and to suggest some of the ways in which those issues might be tackled. The chapter returns to questions originally explored in his book Civilized Rebels. An Inside Story of the West’s Retreat from Global Power (Routledge 2018).

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Supporting evidence may be found at: ‘Exclusive: Inside the hellish prison where Mandela was held’, at https://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/25/africa/south-africa-jail-mandela/index.html ; see also ‘Mandela moved to house at prison farm’, New York Times , 8 December 1988, at https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/08/world/mandela-moved-to-house-at-prison-farm.html ; on Ahmed Kathrada, ‘Mandela’s right hand man and prison mate, his elder brother and mentor’, New Statesman , 6 December 2013, at https://www.newstatesman.com/samira-shackle/2013/12/mandelas-right–hand-man-and-prison-mate-his-elder-brother-and-mentor ; and the following files: http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/nelsonmandelaswarders.pdf ; https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/prison-timeline https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/trials-and-prison-chronology ; all accessed 17 October 2018.

Beinart and Bundy ( 1987 ), Brown ( 2012 ), Bundy ( 2012 , 2015 ), Carlin ( 2013 ), Carlson ( 1977 ), Filatova and Davidson ( 2013 ), Darwin ( 2011 : 217–754), Gevisser ( 2009 ), Giliomee ( 2012 ), Gumede ( 2007 ), Hancock ( 1962 , 1968 ), Johnson ( 2015a , b ), Koorts ( 2014 ), Madikizela-Mandela ( 2013 ), Madonsela ( 2016 ), Maharaj ( 2008 ), Mamdani ( 2015 ), Mandela ( 2002 , 2003a , b ), Marsh ( 1994 ), Mbeki ( 1964 , 1991 , 1992 ), Meredith ( 1997 , 2008 ), Murray ( 2016 ), Nimocks ( 1968 ), O’Brien ( 1979 ), Packenham ( 1992 ), Plaut and Holden ( 2012 ), Pogrund ( 2000 ), Ross ( 2008 ), Rotberg ( 1988 ), Russell ( 2009 ), Sampson ( 2000 ), Schreiner and Cronwright-Schreiner ( 1896 ), Schreiner ( 1989 ), Sitze ( 2013 , 2014 ), Smith ( 2013 ), Stanley ( 2016 ), Steyn ( 2015 ), Thompson and Berat ( 2014 ), Welsh ( 2000 , 2009 , 2015 ).

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Smith, D. (2020). Nelson Mandela: Courage and Conviction—The Making of a Leader. In: Parsons, J., Chappell, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31974-8_17

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Former South African president and civil rights advocate Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to fighting for equality—and ultimately helped topple South Africa's racist system of apartheid. His accomplishments are now celebrated each year on July 18, Nelson Mandela International Day.

• HISTORY & CULTURE

How Nelson Mandela fought apartheid—and why his work is not complete

This activist dedicated his life to dismantling racism—and went from being the world’s most famous political prisoner to South Africa’s first Black president.

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in what was then known as the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire. Though the majority of its inhabitants were Black, they were dominated by a white minority that controlled the land, the wealth, and the government—a discriminatory social structure that would later be codified in the country’s legal system and called apartheid.

Over the next 95 years, Mandela would help topple South Africa’s brutal social order. During a lifetime of resistance, imprisonment, and leadership, Nelson Mandela led South Africa out of apartheid and into an era of reconciliation and majority rule.  

( Read with your kids about Nelson Mandela’s life. )

Mandela began his life under another name: Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela. His father was a chief of the Thembu people, a subgroup of the Xhosa people, who make up South Africa’s second-largest cultural group. After defying a British magistrate, Mandela’s father had been stripped of his chieftainship, title, and land. On his first day in a segregated elementary school, Rolihlahla, too, was stripped of his identity when his schoolteacher gave every child an English name—a common practice in a society in which whites “were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one,” he   wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom .

While Mandela’s skin relegated him to the lowest social order in segregated South Africa, his royal blood—and connections—gave him access to the country’s only university for Black people, the University of Fort Hare. There, he became an activist, and was expelled for protesting the student government’s lack of power. He returned home to his small village on the eastern Cape only to find that his family wanted him to enter an arranged marriage to punish him for leaving school. So he fled north to Soweto, South Africa’s largest Black city, in 1941.

Apartheid and activism

In Soweto, Mandela became a part-time law student at Wits University and began to practice law, starting the nation’s first Black law firm. He joined the   African National Congress , a group that agitated for the civil rights of Black South Africans. In 1948, the segregation that was already rampant in South Africa became state law when its ruling party formally adopted apartheid , or apartness. This policy required Black South Africans to carry identification with them at all times, which they needed to enter areas designated for whites. They were forced to live in all-Black zones and forbidden from entering into interracial relationships. Black people were even removed from the voter rolls and eventually fully disenfranchised.

At first, Mandela and his fellow members of the ANC used nonviolent tactics like strikes and demonstrations to protest apartheid. In 1952, Mandela helped escalate the struggle as a leader of the Defiance Campaign, which encouraged Black participants to actively violate laws. More than 8,000 people —including Mandela—were jailed for violating curfews, refusing to carry identification passes, and other offenses.  

( See pictures from the life and times of Mandela. )

Protesters gather in front of a courthouse in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the 1956 treason trial of anti-apartheid activists, among them Nelson Mandela. The defendants were found not guilty, but some—including Mandela—were later convicted on a separate charge in 1964.

The Defiance Campaign catapulted the ANC’s agenda, and Mandela, into the public eye as they continued to agitate for Black rights. After serving his sentence, Mandela continued to lead protests against the government and, in 1956, he, along with 155 others, was tried for treason . He was acquitted in 1961 and lived in hiding for 17 months after the trial.

Over time, Mandela came to believe that armed resistance was the only way to end apartheid. In 1962, he briefly left the country to receive military training and gain support for the cause but was arrested and convicted soon after his return for leaving the country without a permit. Then, while he was in prison, police discovered documents related to Mandela’s plan for guerrilla warfare. They charged him and his allies with sabotage.

Mandela and the other defendants in the ensuing   Rivonia Trial knew they were sure to be convicted and executed. So they turned their show trial into a statement, publicizing their anti-apartheid struggle and challenging the legal system that oppressed Black South Africans. When it was Mandela’s turn to speak for the defense, he delivered a   four-hour-long speech .

“The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy,” he said. “Our struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by our own suffering and our own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.” Mandela was committed to the ideal of a free society, he said, and “if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

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Prison years.

Mandela wasn’t put to death—but, in 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison. He was   allowed only one 30-minute visit with a single person every year, and could send and receive two letters a year. Confined in austere conditions, he worked in a limestone quarry and over time, earned the   respect of his captors and fellow prisoners. He was given chances to leave prison in exchange for ensuring the ANC would give up violence but refused.

Over his 27 years of imprisonment, Mandela became the world’s best-known political prisoner. His words were banned in South Africa, but he was already the country’s most famous man. His supporters agitated for his release and news of his imprisonment galvanized anti-apartheid activists all over the world.

In the 1960s, some members of the United Nations began to call for sanctions against South Africa—calls that grew louder in the decades that followed. Eventually, South Africa became an international pariah. In 1990, in response to international pressure and the threat of civil war, South Africa’s new president, F.W. de Klerk, pledged to end apartheid and released Mandela from prison.

Nelson Mandela and wife, Winnie, raise their fists upon his release from Victor Verster prison in South Africa. Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years for his fight against apartheid. Upon his release, he negotiated an end to the racist policy and was elected president of South Africa.

Apartheid did not immediately end with Mandela’s release. Now 71, Mandela negotiated with de Klerk for a new constitution that would allow majority rule. Apartheid was repealed in 1991, and in 1994, the ANC, now a political party, won more than 62 percent of the popular vote in a peaceful, democratic election. Mandela—who now shares   a Nobel Peace Prize with de Klerk—became the president of a new nation, South Africa.  

( Here's how South Africa has changed since the end of apartheid. )

Post-apartheid leadership

Mandela served as president for five years. Among his accomplishments was South Africa’s   Truth and Reconciliation Commission , designed to document human rights violations and help victims and violators come to term with their past. Though its results are contested, the commission offered the beginnings of restorative justice—a process that focuses on repair rather than retribution— to a nation still smarting from centuries of scars.

Mandela’s legacy wasn’t unassailable: He was considered by some analysts a largely ineffective president and was criticized for his handling of violence and the economy while in office.

After leaving office in 1999, Mandela spent the remainder of his life working to end poverty and raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. He died in 2013 at age 95.

Every year on July 18, he is   remembered on Nelson Mandela International Day, a United Nations holiday that commemorates his service and sacrifice. It’s a reminder that Mandela’s work is not yet done—an opinion shared by Mandela himself.  

( Even in the U.S., Mandela is a symbol of hope. )

“To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others,” he   wrote in his autobiography. “The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.”

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Nelson Mandela Research Paper Topics

Nelson Mandela research paper topics offer students a fascinating exploration of the life and legacy of one of the most influential figures in modern history. This comprehensive guide provides a diverse range of research paper topics that delve into various aspects of Nelson Mandela’s life, activism, and impact. From his anti-apartheid struggle to his presidency and advocacy for human rights, the topics cover the breadth of Mandela’s contributions. Whether studying his political leadership, his philosophy of forgiveness, or his lasting cultural impact, students will find ample inspiration for their research papers. Discover the captivating world of Nelson Mandela through these thought-provoking research paper topics.

Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy have inspired countless individuals around the world. This comprehensive list of Nelson Mandela research paper topics explores various facets of his extraordinary journey, ranging from his early activism to his time as President of South Africa. Divided into ten categories, each containing ten unique topics, this list provides students with a diverse range of research paper options to delve into the complexities of Mandela’s life, his leadership, and his enduring impact on society.

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Early Life and Activism

• Nelson Mandela’s childhood and upbringing: Influences and experiences.
• Mandela’s education and early influences in shaping his worldview.
• The impact of Mandela’s legal career on his activism and political aspirations.
• Mandela’s involvement in the African National Congress (ANC): A journey towards liberation.
• Mandela’s role in the Defiance Campaign: Resistance against apartheid laws.
• The influence of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy on Mandela’s early activism.
• Mandela’s involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign: Causes and consequences.
• Mandela’s experiences during the Treason Trial and its impact on his leadership.
• Mandela’s leadership in the ANC Youth League: Shaping a new generation of activists.
• The significance of the Freedom Charter in Mandela’s vision for a democratic South Africa.

Anti-Apartheid Struggle

• The Rivonia Trial: Mandela’s role, the trial’s impact, and its historical significance.
• The influence of Mandela’s time in prison on the anti-apartheid movement.
• Mandela’s leadership in the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK): Armed resistance against apartheid.
• The impact of international support and solidarity on the anti-apartheid struggle.
• Mandela’s negotiations with the apartheid government: Challenges, achievements, and compromises.
• The role of women in the anti-apartheid movement: Their contributions and challenges.
• Mandela’s international travels and advocacy: Building support for the anti-apartheid cause.
• The impact of the Sharpeville Massacre on Mandela’s activism and the anti-apartheid movement.
• Mandela’s role in the Soweto Uprising: Catalyst for change.
• Mandela’s strategy of nonviolence and peaceful resistance against apartheid.

Imprisonment and Resilience

• Robben Island prison: Conditions, challenges, and Mandela’s experiences.
• Mandela’s leadership and organization of political prisoners on Robben Island.
• The impact of Mandela’s correspondence and writings during his imprisonment.
• The global movement to free Nelson Mandela: Strategies, successes, and setbacks.
• Mandela’s transformation and resilience during his 27-year imprisonment.
• The impact of Mandela’s release from prison: Catalyst for political change.
• Mandela’s contribution to the negotiations for a peaceful transition to democracy.
• Mandela’s role in the CODESA negotiations: Challenges and compromises.
• The significance of Mandela’s prison memoir, “Long Walk to Freedom.”
• Mandela’s transition from prisoner to statesman: Lessons in forgiveness and reconciliation.

Mandela’s Presidency and Leadership

• Mandela’s presidency: Achievements, challenges, and legacy.
• Mandela’s approach to nation-building and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Evaluating its role in healing a divided nation.
• Mandela’s economic policies and their impact on South Africa’s development.
• Mandela’s educational reforms and their contribution to social change.
• Mandela’s role in promoting healthcare and combating HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
• Mandela’s foreign policy initiatives: Shaping South Africa’s international relations.
• Mandela’s stance on human rights and social justice issues during his presidency.
• The impact of Mandela’s leadership on South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
• Mandela’s retirement and the preservation of his legacy in South African politics.

Mandela’s Philosophy and Ideals

• Ubuntu philosophy: Understanding its influence on Mandela’s leadership approach.
• Mandela’s commitment to nonviolence: Principles, strategies, and challenges.
• Mandela’s vision for a democratic and inclusive South Africa.
• The role of forgiveness and reconciliation in Mandela’s philosophy.
• Mandela’s advocacy for gender equality and women’s rights.
• Mandela’s commitment to youth empowerment and education.
• Mandela’s promotion of racial equality and multiculturalism.
• The influence of Mandela’s values and ideals on the global stage.
• Mandela’s belief in the power of dialogue and negotiation.
• Mandela’s legacy in promoting social justice and human rights globally.

Mandela’s International Impact

• Mandela’s role in promoting peace and conflict resolution in Africa.
• The international reception of Mandela’s message of unity and reconciliation.
• Mandela’s influence on the decolonization movements in Africa.
• Mandela’s contributions to the Pan-Africanist movement.
• Mandela’s role in shaping South Africa’s relationship with neighboring countries.
• Mandela’s impact on the African Union and regional integration.
• Mandela’s influence on global human rights and international diplomacy.
• Mandela’s contributions to the fight against poverty and inequality worldwide.
• Mandela’s involvement in international humanitarian efforts.
• The legacy of Nelson Mandela in the context of global leadership and activism.

Mandela’s Cultural Impact

• The portrayal of Nelson Mandela in literature and popular culture.
• Mandela’s influence on South African art, music, and literature.
• Mandela’s impact on the cultural identity and pride of the South African people.
• Mandela’s role in promoting multilingualism and preserving indigenous languages.
• The use of Mandela’s speeches and quotes in contemporary activism.
• Mandela’s connection to traditional African spirituality and cultural practices.
• The symbolism of Robben Island and Mandela’s prison experiences in South African art.
• The commemoration of Mandela’s life and legacy through public monuments and memorials.
• Mandela’s influence on the perception of South Africa as a global cultural hub.
• Mandela’s contributions to the preservation of historical heritage sites in South Africa.

Mandela’s Legacy

• Assessing the impact of Mandela’s leadership on racial reconciliation in South Africa.
• The enduring significance of the Mandela presidency in South African politics.
• Mandela’s legacy in shaping South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
• Mandela’s impact on education and the empowerment of marginalized communities.
• Evaluating Mandela’s contribution to economic transformation and social justice in South Africa.
• The role of Mandela’s legacy in ongoing debates on land reform in South Africa.
• Mandela’s legacy and the ongoing struggle for gender equality in South Africa.
• The influence of Mandela’s philosophy of inclusivity and social cohesion on contemporary society.
• Mandela’s legacy in promoting human rights and social justice globally.
• The challenges and unfinished business in fulfilling Mandela’s vision for South Africa.

Mandela’s Personal Life and Relationships

• Mandela’s family background and its influence on his life and activism.
• The role of Winnie Mandela in the anti-apartheid movement and her impact on Mandela’s life.
• Mandela’s marriages and personal relationships: Exploring their influence on his journey.
• Mandela as a father and family man: Balancing personal and political responsibilities.
• Mandela’s relationship with other prominent anti-apartheid activists.
• The impact of Mandela’s imprisonment on his family dynamics and personal resilience.
• Mandela’s friendships and collaborations with global leaders and influential figures.
• Mandela’s role as a mentor and inspiration to future generations of leaders.
• Mandela’s personal values and ethical principles: Their impact on his leadership.
• Mandela’s legacy through the eyes of his loved ones and those closest to him.

Evaluating Mandela’s Leadership and Impact

• Critiques and controversies surrounding Mandela’s leadership and decision-making.
• Assessing the successes and limitations of Mandela’s approach to reconciliation.
• Mandela’s contribution to addressing socioeconomic inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa.
• Mandela’s influence on the empowerment of marginalized communities in South Africa.
• The role of Mandela’s leadership in shaping democratic institutions in South Africa.
• Mandela’s impact on social justice issues beyond South Africa’s borders.
• Evaluating Mandela’s legacy in relation to the ongoing struggle for racial equality.
• Mandela’s leadership in promoting African unity and continental cooperation.
• The influence of Mandela’s philosophy on contemporary political thought and activism.
• The enduring relevance of Mandela’s principles and ideals in a changing world.

This comprehensive list of Nelson Mandela research paper topics provides students with an extensive array of subjects to explore within the context of his life, activism, and enduring impact. From his early years and activism to his time as President, from his philosophy of reconciliation to his cultural and international impact, these topics offer opportunities for in-depth research and critical analysis. By delving into the complexities of Nelson Mandela’s journey, students can gain a deeper understanding of the historical, social, and political dynamics of South Africa and the global fight against apartheid.

Nelson Mandela: Exploring the Life and Legacy

Nelson Mandela, a towering figure in the fight against apartheid and the first democratically elected President of South Africa, remains an enduring symbol of courage, resilience, and the pursuit of justice. His remarkable life story and unwavering commitment to equality and human rights make him a subject of immense historical and academic interest. In this article, we will explore the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, shedding light on his early years, his activism and imprisonment, his presidency, and his lasting impact on South Africa and the world.

Early Years and Activism

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo, Transkei, South Africa. Coming from a royal Thembu family, Mandela was exposed to the injustices of racial segregation from an early age. As a young man, he joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became increasingly involved in anti-apartheid activism. Mandela’s early years laid the foundation for his unwavering commitment to social justice and his fight against racial oppression.

Imprisonment and the Struggle Against Apartheid

In 1964, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for his activism and opposition to the apartheid regime. For 27 long years, Mandela endured the harsh conditions of Robben Island and other prisons. Despite the isolation and dehumanization, Mandela emerged as a symbol of hope and resilience. His imprisonment galvanized international support for the anti-apartheid movement, and his unwavering commitment to peace and reconciliation became a beacon of inspiration for oppressed communities worldwide.

Transition to Democracy and Presidency

The release of Nelson Mandela on February 11, 1990, marked a turning point in South Africa’s history. Mandela played a pivotal role in the negotiations that led to the dismantling of apartheid and the establishment of a democratic and inclusive society. In 1994, Mandela was elected as South Africa’s first black President, ushering in a new era of hope and transformation. His presidency was characterized by efforts to heal the wounds of the past, promote reconciliation, and tackle the challenges of poverty, inequality, and racism.

Legacy and Impact

The legacy of Nelson Mandela extends far beyond his presidency. His commitment to forgiveness, reconciliation, and the pursuit of social justice continues to inspire generations of activists and leaders worldwide. Mandela’s emphasis on education, healthcare, and economic development as tools for social change laid the groundwork for a more equitable society. His leadership in promoting racial equality, gender empowerment, and human rights left an indelible mark on South Africa and the global community.

Mandela’s dedication to dialogue and diplomacy fostered a spirit of cooperation and unity among diverse communities, both within South Africa and internationally. His efforts to bridge divides and build bridges of understanding serve as a testament to the power of empathy and compassion in effecting positive change. Mandela’s influence resonates not only in the political realm but also in art, literature, music, and popular culture, where his life story continues to be celebrated and commemorated.

Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy serve as a testament to the indomitable spirit of human resilience and the power of transformative leadership. His journey from activist to prisoner to President exemplifies the capacity of individuals to shape history and inspire others. As students delve into the world of Nelson Mandela, they uncover a wealth of research paper topics, exploring his early activism, imprisonment, presidency, and enduring impact on South Africa and the world. The life and legacy of Nelson Mandela offer valuable lessons in courage, perseverance, and the unwavering pursuit of justice, making him a truly remarkable and inspirational figure in history.

How to Choose Nelson Mandela Research Paper Topics

Nelson Mandela’s life and legacy offer a rich tapestry of subjects for research papers, allowing students to delve into various aspects of his activism, leadership, and impact on South Africa and the world. Selecting the right research paper topic is crucial to ensure a compelling and meaningful exploration of Mandela’s contributions. In this section, we will provide you with a guide on how to choose Nelson Mandela research paper topics, offering insights, tips, and considerations to help you make an informed decision.

• Reflect on Your Interests and Passions : Start by reflecting on your own interests and passions within the context of Nelson Mandela’s life. Are you drawn to his activism, his political leadership, or his role in the fight against apartheid? Identifying areas that resonate with you personally will enable you to engage more deeply with the research process and produce a more compelling paper.
• Consider Key Periods and Events : Nelson Mandela’s life spanned several key periods and events that shaped South Africa’s history. Consider exploring specific periods such as his early activism, his imprisonment, his role in the transition to democracy, or his presidency. By focusing on a particular period, you can provide a more nuanced and detailed analysis of Mandela’s experiences and their historical significance.
• Examine Mandela’s Leadership Style and Philosophies : Nelson Mandela’s leadership style and philosophies played a pivotal role in shaping his impact. You can choose to examine his approach to leadership, his strategies for mobilization and organizing, or his philosophy of forgiveness and reconciliation. Analyzing Mandela’s leadership principles will provide insights into his effectiveness as a leader and his enduring influence.
• Investigate the Intersection of Mandela’s Life with Other Historical Figures : Explore the connections between Nelson Mandela and other influential figures within the anti-apartheid movement, such as Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, or Steve Biko. By examining the relationships, collaborations, and conflicts between Mandela and his contemporaries, you can gain a broader understanding of the collective efforts that led to the dismantling of apartheid.
• Analyze Mandela’s Impact on Post-Apartheid South Africa : Consider researching the impact of Nelson Mandela’s presidency and post-apartheid South Africa. Topics could include his efforts to address socioeconomic inequalities, his role in promoting national reconciliation, or his contributions to nation-building. Analyzing Mandela’s legacy beyond his time in office will provide valuable insights into the challenges and achievements of a new South Africa.
• Explore Mandela’s International Influence : Nelson Mandela’s influence extended beyond South Africa’s borders, inspiring movements for social justice and equality worldwide. Consider researching the global impact of Mandela’s activism, his role as an international statesman, or his contributions to peace and reconciliation efforts in other regions of the world. By examining Mandela’s global reach, you can explore the interconnectedness of struggles for justice and human rights.
• Investigate Mandela’s Contributions to Education and Humanitarian Efforts : Delve into Nelson Mandela’s initiatives in the fields of education, healthcare, and humanitarian efforts. Topics could include his establishment of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, or his advocacy for access to education. By examining Mandela’s commitment to social development, you can explore the lasting impact of his initiatives on South African society.
• Examine Mandela’s Cultural and Symbolic Legacy : Explore the cultural and symbolic legacy of Nelson Mandela. Topics could include the representation of Mandela in art, literature, film, or music. Analyze how Mandela became a global icon of resistance and liberation, and how his image and legacy have been commodified or mythologized. This approach offers a unique perspective on the construction of historical narratives and the power of symbolism.
• Assess Critiques and Controversies Surrounding Mandela’s Legacy : Engage with critical perspectives on Nelson Mandela’s legacy and impact. Research topics that examine the criticisms and controversies surrounding his leadership, the challenges faced during the post-apartheid era, or the unfinished business of social and economic justice in South Africa. By considering differing viewpoints, you can develop a more nuanced understanding of Mandela’s complex legacy.
• Investigate Mandela’s Personal Life and Influences : Explore Nelson Mandela’s personal life and the influences that shaped him. Topics could include his family background, his relationships, or the mentors who played a significant role in his development as a leader. By examining the personal dimensions of Mandela’s life, you can gain insights into the factors that shaped his character and informed his decision-making.

Choosing a research paper topic on Nelson Mandela requires careful consideration of your interests, the historical context, and the impact of Mandela’s life and legacy. By reflecting on your passions, exploring key periods and events, examining his leadership style and philosophies, investigating his impact on post-apartheid South Africa, and exploring various other dimensions of his life, you can select a compelling topic that allows for in-depth analysis and meaningful contributions to the field of study. Remember to approach your topic with critical thinking, engage with diverse perspectives, and consider the broader historical significance of Mandela’s contributions.

How to Write a Nelson Mandela Research Paper

Writing a research paper on Nelson Mandela requires a thoughtful approach to ensure a comprehensive and engaging analysis of his life, activism, and impact. In this section, we will provide you with a guide on how to write a compelling Nelson Mandela research paper. From formulating a thesis statement to conducting thorough research and presenting your findings, these tips will help you navigate the process and produce a high-quality paper.

• Formulate a Clear Thesis Statement : Start by formulating a clear and concise thesis statement that captures the main argument or focus of your research paper. Your thesis statement should be specific, debatable, and provide a roadmap for the rest of your paper. Consider the aspects of Nelson Mandela’s life or impact that you want to explore and formulate a thesis that reflects your intended analysis.
• Conduct In-Depth Research : To write a comprehensive Nelson Mandela research paper, conduct in-depth research using a variety of reputable sources. Utilize books, scholarly articles, documentaries, interviews, and archival materials to gather information and gain a thorough understanding of Mandela’s life and historical context. Ensure that your research is balanced, drawing from multiple perspectives to provide a nuanced analysis.
• Outline Your Paper : Create a detailed outline to organize your thoughts and structure your research paper. Divide your paper into logical sections and subtopics, ensuring a coherent flow of ideas. The outline will serve as a roadmap, guiding your writing process and helping you maintain focus and clarity throughout your paper.
• Analyze Primary and Secondary Sources : Engage with primary and secondary sources related to Nelson Mandela to support your arguments and provide evidence for your claims. Primary sources can include Mandela’s speeches, interviews, writings, and official documents, while secondary sources provide scholarly analysis and interpretations. Critically evaluate and analyze these sources to develop a well-rounded understanding of Mandela’s life and impact.
• Explore Multiple Perspectives : When writing about Nelson Mandela, consider different perspectives and interpretations of his life and legacy. Engage with scholarly debates and discussions surrounding Mandela’s role as a leader, his strategies for change, and the impact of his actions. By presenting a nuanced analysis that incorporates diverse viewpoints, you can demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
• Contextualize Mandela’s Contributions : Place Nelson Mandela’s contributions within their historical and socio-political context. Analyze the impact of apartheid, the resistance movements, and the broader social, economic, and political factors that influenced Mandela’s activism. By providing a contextual framework, you can offer deeper insights into the motivations and significance of Mandela’s actions.
• Support Your Arguments with Evidence : Ensure that your research paper is well-supported with evidence from your sources. Use direct quotes, statistics, and examples to substantiate your claims and provide credibility to your analysis. Remember to properly cite your sources using the appropriate citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian) to give proper credit to the original authors and maintain academic integrity.
• Develop a Coherent Structure : Organize your research paper into a coherent structure that flows logically and supports your thesis statement. Start with an engaging introduction that provides background information and introduces your thesis. Follow with body paragraphs that present your arguments, evidence, and analysis, using topic sentences to maintain clarity and coherence. Conclude with a strong summary that restates your thesis and highlights the significance of your findings.
• Incorporate Critical Analysis : Engage in critical analysis throughout your research paper. Evaluate Mandela’s successes, challenges, and impact, considering both the positive and negative aspects. Address counterarguments and respond to opposing viewpoints to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding Mandela’s life and legacy.
• Revise, Edit, and Proofread : Once you have completed the initial draft of your research paper, take the time to revise, edit, and proofread your work. Pay attention to clarity, coherence, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Ensure that your ideas are presented in a logical and concise manner, and that your writing is free from errors. Consider seeking feedback from peers or mentors to gain additional perspectives and improve the overall quality of your paper.

Writing a research paper on Nelson Mandela provides an opportunity to delve into the life, activism, and impact of one of the world’s most influential leaders. By formulating a clear thesis statement, conducting in-depth research, exploring multiple perspectives, contextualizing Mandela’s contributions, and incorporating critical analysis, you can produce a compelling and well-rounded paper. Remember to maintain academic integrity, cite your sources properly, and revise your work to ensure a polished final product. Through thorough research and thoughtful analysis, you can contribute to the scholarly understanding of Nelson Mandela’s enduring legacy.

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Nelson Mandela and the Lawyer as Agent for Social Change

The Professional Lawyer, Vol. 22 No. 2

Saint Louis U. Legal Studies Research Paper 2014-6

6 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2014 Last revised: 22 May 2014

Justin Hansford

Howard University School of Law; Georgetown University Law Center; Saint Louis University - School of Law; University of the Witwatersrand Law School; Harvard University Chalres Warren Center

Date Written: March 12, 2014

On December 5, 2013, a preeminently honorable man, perhaps the most admired in the world, passed away. That man was Nelson Mandela, and he was a lawyer. Mandela’s surpassing prominence came not from writing a groundbreaking law review article, or from dazzling court watchers with a brilliant closing argument in a high profile trial (save the historic “speech from the dock” that he gave at his own). Mandela’s singular gift to civilization – his inspiration and leadership of South Africa’s peaceful transition from Apartheid rule to multi-racial, constitutional democracy – will not be known by most people as the provision of a “legal service.” Indeed, relatively few among the millions who revere Mandela will perceive the formidable legal mind at work behind his history-making achievements. But as much as anything, it was Mandela’s mastery of the lawyer’s art that enabled him to build a case that changed the world. Mandela was a lawyer’s lawyer. And his story is a lesson to all that living the lawyer’s life, at its best, engenders the skills and character traits that can empower people to make a difference in their community, their nation, and beyond.

Keywords: Nelson Mandela, Social Justice, South Africa

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Justin Hansford (Contact Author)

Howard university school of law ( email ).

2900 Van Ness Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20008 United States 202-806-8083 (Phone)

Georgetown University Law Center ( email )

600 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC DC 20001 United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.justinhansford.com

Saint Louis University - School of Law ( email )

100 N. Tucker Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63101 United States

University of the Witwatersrand Law School ( email )

1 Jan Smuts Johannesburg, GA South Africa

Harvard University Chalres Warren Center ( email )

1875 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 United States

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Nelson Mandela

In the revolution led by Mandela to transform a model of racial division and oppression into an open democracy, he demonstrated that he didn’t flinch from taking up arms, but his real qualities came to the fore after his time as an activist–during his 27 years in prison and in the eight years since his release, when he had to negotiate the challenge of turning a myth into a man.

Rolihlahla Mandela was born deep in the black homeland of Transkei on July 18, 1918. His first name could be interpreted, prophetically, as “troublemaker.” The Nelson was added later, by a primary school teacher with delusions of imperial splendor. Mandela’s boyhood was peaceful enough, spent on cattle herding and other rural pursuits, until the death of his father landed him in the care of a powerful relative, the acting regent of the Thembu people. But it was only after he left the missionary College of Fort Hare, where he had become involved in student protests against the white colonial rule of the institution, that he set out on the long walk toward personal and national liberation.

Having run away from his guardian to avoid an arranged marriage, he joined a law firm in Johannesburg as an apprentice. Years of daily exposure to the inhumanities of apartheid, where being black reduced one to the status of a nonperson, kindled in him a kind of absurd courage to change the world. It meant that instead of the easy life in a rural setting he’d been brought up for, or even a modest measure of success as a lawyer, his only future certainties would be sacrifice and suffering, with little hope of success in a country in which centuries of colonial rule had concentrated all political and military power, all access to education, and most of the wealth in the hands of the white minority. The classic conditions for a successful revolution were almost wholly absent: the great mass of have-nots had been humbled into docile collusion, the geographic expanse of the country hampered communication and mobility, and the prospects of a race war were not only unrealistic but also horrendous.

In these circumstances Mandela opted for nonviolence as a strategy. He joined the Youth League of the African National Congress and became involved in programs of passive resistance against the laws that forced blacks to carry passes and kept them in a position of permanent servility.

Exasperated, the government mounted a massive treason trial against its main opponents, Mandela among them. It dragged on for five years, until 1961, ending in the acquittal of all 156 accused. But by that time the country had been convulsed by the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in March 1960, and the government was intent on crushing all opposition. Most liberation movements, including the A.N.C., were banned. Earning a reputation as the Black Pimpernel, Mandela went underground for more than a year and traveled abroad to enlist support for the A.N.C.

Soon after his return, he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment on Robben Island for five years; within months practically all the leaders of the A.N.C. were arrested. Mandela was hauled from prison to face with them an almost certain death sentence. His statement from the dock was destined to smolder in the homes and servant quarters, the shacks and shebeens and huts and hovels of the oppressed, and to burn in the conscience of the world: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. 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.”

Without any attempt to find a legal way out, Mandela assumed his full responsibility. This conferred a new status of moral dignity on his leadership, which became evident from the moment he was returned to Robben Island. Even on his first arrival, two years before, he had set an example by refusing to obey an order to jog from the harbor, where the ferry docked, to the prison gates. The warden in charge warned him bluntly that unless he started obeying, he might quite simply be killed and that no one on the mainland would ever be the wiser. Whereupon Mandela quietly retorted, “If you so much as lay a hand on me, I will take you to the highest court in the land, and when I finish with you, you will be as poor as a church mouse.” Amazingly, the warden backed off. “Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose,” Mandela later wrote in notes smuggled out by friends.

His major response to the indignities of the prison was a creative denial of victimhood, expressed most remarkably by a system of self-education, which earned the prison the appellation of “Island University.” As the prisoners left their cells in the morning to toil in the extremes of summer and winter, buffeted by the merciless southeaster or broiled by the African sun (whose glare in the limestone quarry permanently impaired Mandela’s vision), each team was assigned an instructor–in history, economics, politics, philosophy, whatever. Previously barren recreation hours were filled with cultural activities, and Mandela recalls with pride his acting in the role of Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone.

After more than two decades in prison, confident that on some crucial issues a leader must make decisions on his own, Mandela decided on a new approach. And after painstaking preliminaries, the most famous prisoner in the world was escorted, in the greatest secrecy, to the State President’s office to start negotiating not only his own release but also the nation’s transition from apartheid to democracy. On Feb. 2, 1990, President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the A.N.C. and announced Mandela’s imminent release.

Then began the real test. Every inch of the way, Mandela had to win the support of his own followers. More difficult still was the process of allaying white fears. But the patience, the wisdom, the visionary quality Mandela brought to his struggle, and above all the moral integrity with which he set about to unify a divided people, resulted in the country’s first democratic elections and his selection as President.

The road since then has not been easy. Tormented by the scandals that pursued his wife Winnie, from whom he finally parted; plagued by corruption among his followers; dogged by worries about delivering on programs of job creation and housing in a country devastated by white greed, he has become a sadder, wiser man.

In the process he has undeniably made mistakes, based on a stubborn belief in himself. Yet his stature and integrity remain such that these failings tend to enhance rather than diminish his humanity. Camus once said one man’s chains imply that we are all enslaved; Mandela proves through his own example that faith, hope and charity are qualities attainable by humanity as a whole. Through his willingness to walk the road of sacrifice, he has reaffirmed our common potential to move toward a new age.

And he is not deluded by the adulation of the world. Asked to comment on the BBC’s unflattering verdict on his performance as a leader, Mandela said with a smile, “It helps to make you human.”

Andre Brink, a professor at the University of Cape Town, is the author of A Dry White Season

Click to Print Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988171,00.html

Nelson Mandela Online

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Full name Nelson Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela AKA ‘Madiba’.

Mandela’s words, “The struggle is my life,” are not to be taken lightly.

“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”.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life inprison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata

Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Read a full biography on wikipedia

Nelson Mandela Autobiography

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa’s antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, a book destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history’s greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela tells the extraordinary story of his life – an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph, which has, until now, been virtually unknown to most of the world.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children.

He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He recounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account of the unforgettable events since his release that produced at last a free, multiracial democracy in South Africa.

To millions of people around the world, Nelson Mandela stands, as no other living figure does, for the triumph of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, of self-discipline and love over persecution and evil. Long Walk to Freedom embodies that spirit in a book for all time.

Mandela’s autobiography, ‘Long Walk To Freedom’, ends with these words: “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

The Autobiography Audio Book About Nelson Mandela

Listen to his autobiography Audiobook: Long Walk to Freedom where Nelson Mandela describes his life. You download this audio book online now.

Nelson Mandela Quotes

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. Nelson Mandela

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. Nelson Mandela

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. Nelson Mandela

Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Nelson Mandela

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Nelson Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Nelson Mandela

I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders. Nelson Mandela

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man. Nelson Mandela

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself. Nelson Mandela

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses. Nelson Mandela

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers. Nelson Mandela

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness. Nelson Mandela

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. Nelson Mandela

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. Nelson Mandela

In my country we go to prison first and then become President. Nelson Mandela

It always seems impossible until its done. Nelson Mandela

It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. Nelson Mandela

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement. Nelson Mandela

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Nelson Mandela

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will. Nelson Mandela

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another. Nelson Mandela

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. Nelson Mandela

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. Nelson Mandela

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. Nelson Mandela

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. Nelson Mandela

There is no such thing as part freedom. Nelson Mandela

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. Nelson Mandela

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Nelson Mandela

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat. Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela Movies

Two biographical movies were made, and the latest, Mandela and de Klerk (1997) (TV), focused on his life’s struggles.

Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony

Interviews, archival footage, and filmed performances highlight the role of music in the South African struggle against apartheid.

Madiba: The Life and Times of Nelson Mandela

“Life & Times: Nelson Mandela” chooses from the many truly extraordinary intimate epiphanies of Mandela’s life: Whether it’s the silent walk with his mother to the Royal Kraal as a nine-year old…or the fiery end to his first marriage…

Nelson Mandela Invictus Trailer

Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, initiates a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Nelson Mandela Pictures

Nelson Mandela Timeline

1918 – Born on 18 July 1918 in the little village of Mvezo, in Qunu in southern Transkei, into the royal family of the Tembu, a Xhosa-speaking tribe. He is one of the 13 children of his father’s four wives and the youngest of four boys.

When Mandela is nine his father dies and Mandela’s uncle, the head of his tribe, becomes his guardian.

Mandela is the first of his family to go to school, beginning his primary education when he is seven at a Methodist missionary school, where he is given the name Nelson. His education continues at the Clarkebury School and then the all-British Healdtown High School, a strict Methodist college. It is here that Mandela hears of the African National Congress (ANC) for the first time.

On his matriculation Mandela starts a bachelor of arts degree at the African Native College of Fort Hare but is expelled with Oliver Tambo for participating in a student strike.

1941 – When he is 23 Mandela moves to Soweto on the southwestern outskirts of Johannesburg to avoid an arranged marriage. He works as a nightwatchman at a gold mine. After completing his BA by correspondence, he obtains his articles of clerkship and enrols for a degree in law at the University of South Africa.

Mandela meets Walter Sisulu, an active member of the ANC whorecommends Mandela for employment with a lawyer in Johannesburg. The work, along with loans from Sisulu, enables Mandela to complete his law degree. The two become firm friends.

1944 – Mandela joins the ANC. Together with Tambo and Sisulu he helps found the ANC Youth League. During the year Mandela marries his first wife, Evelyn Mase, a trainee nurse. The couple will have two sons and two daughters, although their first daughter dies aged nine months in 1948 their eldest son is killed in a car crash in 1969.

1947 – Mandela is elected secretary of the ANC Youth League.

1948 – The National Party is voted into power by the white electorate. The party has campaigned on the promise to introduce a system of “apartheid” to totally separate the races. Discrimination against blacks, “coloureds” and Asians will be codified and extended.

All South Africans are legally assigned to one racial group – white, African, coloured or Asian. All races have separate living areas and separate amenities (such as toilets, parks and beaches). Signs enforcing the separation are erected throughout the country. Only white South Africans are allowed full political rights.

Black Africans have no parliamentary representation outside of the supposedly independent homelands created by the state. Mixed marriages are prohibited. Black trade unions are banned. Education is provided only up to a level to which it is deemed “a native is fitted.” Separate universities and colleges are established for Africans, coloureds and Indians. Jobs can be categorised as being for whites only. Travel without a pass is not permitted.

Police powers are expanded. Those charged with dissent are presumed guilty until proven innocent. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) allows the police to “list” almost any opponent of apartheid as a supporter of the outlawed Communist Party of South Africa.

Opponents can be “banned”, an order subjecting them to lengthy periods of house arrest and preventing them from holding public office, attending public meetings and visiting specified areas. The Native Administration Act (1956) allows the government to “banish” Africans to remote rural areas.

During the 1950s there are approximately 500,000 pass law arrests annually, more than 600 individuals are listed as communists, nearly 350 are banned, and more than 150 are banished.

Speaking later about the National Party, Mandela says, “I despised them. … They dressed in beautiful suits, silk shirts and silk ties, but they were like a grave – beautiful outside and full of evil inside. That’s why I despised them. That’s why I fought them.”

1949 – On 17 December the Youth League’s ‘Program of Action’ to achieve full citizenship and direct parliamentary representation for all South Africans is adopted by the ANC at its annual conference. The program advocates the use of boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and noncooperation.

1950 – Mandela is elected to the ANC National Executive Committee at the ANC’s national conference. In 1951 he becomes national president of the Youth League.

1952 – In February the ANC calls on the government to repeal all unjust laws or face a ‘Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws’. Mandela is placed in charge of volunteers for the campaign. He travels the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation. Mass rallies and strikes staged on 6 April and 26 June attract thousands of supporters.

The government reacts by introducing harsher penalties for protests against apartheid. Campaign leaders and opposition newspapers are banned and about 8,500 people are arrested, including Mandela. Because of the disciplined and nonviolent nature of the campaign Mandela receives a suspended sentence, although a banning order confines him to Johannesburg for six months and prohibits him from attending gatherings.

While banned he formulates a plan to break down ANC branches into underground cells to enable greater contact with the African community, the so-called ‘M-Plan’ or Mandela plan. He also sits for the attorneys admission examination and is admitted to the bar. A subsequent petition by the Transvaal Law Society to take him off the roll of attorneys is refused by the Supreme Court.

Mandela and Tambo open the first black legal firm in the country. Much of their work involves defending blacks charged with pass law offences.

Meanwhile, the defiance campaign has helped build ANC membership from about 7,000 at the beginning of the year to more than 100,000 by the year’s end. Mandela, who is both president of the Youth League and of the Transvaal region of the ANC, is now elected an ANC deputy national president.

1953 – A banning order forces Mandela to resign officially from the ANC and work underground.

1955 – The ANC writes a ‘Freedom Charter’ stating that South Africa belongs to all people living within it regardless of race, that all South Africans should be treated equally before the law, and that the country’s wealth should be distributed equitably. The charter is being discussed at the ‘Congress of the People’ held near Soweto on 25-26 June when police surround the meeting, announce that they suspect treason is being committed and take the names and addresses of all those present.

1956 – Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu and 153 others are arrested for high treason and charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. During the subsequent ‘Treason Trial’ Mandela conducts his own defence. The defendants are acquitted on all counts in 1961. The court finds that the ANC does not have a policy of violence.

1957 – Mandela meets social worker Nomzamo Zaniewe Winifred “Winnie” Madikizela. He divorces his first wife and marries Winnie in 1958. The couple will have two daughters.

1959 – A radical faction of the ANC splits from the parent body and forms the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). The PAC advocates direct action against the apartheid regime.

1960s – The regime introduces a program of forced relocation. Africans, coloureds and Asians are moved from areas designated for whites only to the “homelands” and other declared areas. By the 1980s about 3.5 million have been relocated.

1960 – In March the PAC begins a national campaign against the pass laws. Africans are asked to assemble outside police stations without their passes and challenge the police to arrest them.

The confrontation turns violent on 21 March when police open fire on a peaceful protest at Sharpeville, a black township near Johannesburg. Sixty-nine black Africans are killed and 186 wounded. Most have been shot in the back.

After the Sharpeville massacre Mandela and other ANC leaders make a public display of burning their passes and urge others to follow their example. When demonstrations continue, the government declares a state of emergency and arrests about 18,000 protesters, including the leaders of the ANC and the PAC. Both organisations are banned.

The ANC and Mandela go underground. The South African press will dub Mandela the ‘Black Pimpernel’ because of the disguises he uses to avoid detection.

1961 – As international protests against apartheid mount, South Africa is expelled from the British Commonwealth.

On 31 May, after gaining approval in a referendum restricted to whites, the government declares South Africa a republic. Mandela organises a national strike in protest. When the government responds by introducing new and harsher laws, and by mobilising its armed forces to break up the strike, Mandela comes to the conclusion that the time has come for the ANC to move beyond nonviolent protest.

“As violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and nonviolence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force,” he says.

“The idea in my mind was not that we were going to win, but that we were going to focus the attention of the world on our demands.”

Mandela and other ANC leaders form Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the ANC, in November. Under Mandela’s leadership it launches a campaign of sabotage against government and economic installations.

Over the next two years 200 acts of sabotage will be carried out by Umkhonto, targeting power supplies, pass offices and other government buildings.

1962 – In January Mandela leaves South Africa illegally to attend a freedom conference in Algeria and to scout for military training facilities for Umkhonto members and raise funds from African states.

While away he personally undertakes a course of military training and resolves that the funding drive should be extended to Western and socialist nations.

Following his return in July he is arrested for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. He conducts his own defence but is convicted in November and jailed for five years with hard labour.

1963 – In July, while Mandela is in prison, police raid an ANC safe house in Rivonia, a fashionable suburb on the northern outskirts Johannesburg and discover arms and equipment.

As a result Mandela, Sisulu and other leaders of the ANC and Umkhonto are put on trial for sabotage and for plotting to overthrow the government by violence and then bring about a communist state.

The defendants face the death penalty. They plead not guilty, arguing that the government is responsible because it forced them into their actions.

Mandela’s statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case on 20 April 1964 receives considerable international publicity.

He ends his statement by saying, “The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy. This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. 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.”

Meanwhile, the government acts to crush any further resistance to apartheid, introducing the General Law Amendment Act. The act allows police to detain suspects for 90 days without charge or access to legal advice. Suspects can then be rearrested and detained for a further 90 days.

1964 – On 11 June eight of the Rivonia accused, including Mandela and Sisulu, are convicted. Mandela is found guilty on four charges of sabotage. All eight are sentenced to life imprisonment and sent Robben Island Prison, a former leper colony 7 km off the coast from Cape Town.

The prisoners are kept in tiny cells measuring about two square metres and with only one small barred window. They sleep on the floor on straw mats and have to use a bucket for a toilet.

By day they work the island’s lime quarry where, because of the light and dust, most suffer from “snow blindness.” Mandela has to undergo surgery to restore the lachrymal ducts of his chronically inflamed eyes. To this day he is blinded by flashlights.

Mandela is allowed only one visit from his wife Winnie every six months. He will not be allowed to see their two daughters for 10 years.

Refusing to be bowed, Mandela continues his studies and encourages the other political detainees to exchange ideas and knowledge. The prison becomes known among the inmates as the ‘Robben Island University’ or the ‘Nelson Mandela University’.

Mandela consistently refuses to renounce his political beliefs in exchange for freedom. He becomes a focus of world attention and a symbol for the struggle of black South Africans. However, despite growing international criticism of the apartheid regime, foreign investment continues to pour into the country and immigration rises.

1973 – The United Nations (UN) declares apartheid “a crime against humanity.”

1975 – The withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration from Angola and Mozambique sees the installation in those countries of new independent governments hostile to South Africa’s apartheid regime. Umkhonto training and camp facilities are quickly set up in Angola. The ANC military wing now has a base close to South Africa.

On 23 October, and with the blessing of United States President Gerald Ford and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, South Africa invades Angola. The South African forces come within 100 km of the Angolan capital but are forced to pull back when Cuba sends 10,000 to 12,000 troops to assist the Angolan resistance.

1976 – The Soweto uprising begins on 16 June when high school students protest against the enforced use of Afrikaans in schools. After the police respond with tear gas and gunfire, demonstrators attack and burn down government buildings.

The uprising leads to weeks of demonstrations, marches and boycotts throughout South Africa. Violent clashes with police leave more than 500 dead, several thousand arrested, and thousands more seeking refuge outside the country, many with the exiled forces of the ANC.

1977 – The UN adopts a mandatory embargo on arms sales to South Africa.

1979 – With capital leaving the country because of political instability, and with the economy beginning to slow, the government attempts to reduce industrial unrest by allowing black workers to form unions. The first chink in the apartheid system has appeared.

1980 – Opposition to South Africa on the African continent is further entrenched when Robert Mugabe’s antiapartheid government takes power in Zimbabwe.

1982 – Mandela, along with Sisulu, is transferred from Robben Island to the maximum-security Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland.

1983 – The United Democratic Front (UDF), a coalition of nearly 600 organisations, is formed to persuade the government to abolish apartheid. Bishop Desmond Tutu emerges as one of the front’s principal spokesmen. By 1984 the front has a membership of more than three million.

1984 – The National Party introduces a new constitution in an attempt to stem dissent. However, the constitution, which establishes three racially segregated houses of parliament, for whites, Asians, and coloureds, but excludes blacks from full citizenship, has the opposite effect and is denounced as a continuation of apartheid.

1985 – Conflict and violence escalate. In 1984 there are 174 fatalities linked to political unrest. In 1985 the number rises to 879. Capital begins to flee the country. Forty US companies pull out of South Africa in 1984. Another 50 leave in 1985. Inflation rises and standards of living drop.

The government declares states of emergency in various parts of the country; the first time the emergency laws have been used since the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. The laws allow police to arrest without warrant and to detain people indefinitely without charge and without notification to lawyers or next of kin. Censorship of the media is also extended.

1986 – In October the US Congress passes legislation implementing mandatory sanctions against South Africa. All new investments and bank loans are banned, air links between the US and South Africa are terminated and the importation of many South African products is stopped.

1987 – While the union movement becomes increasingly militant, with the number of days lost to strikes reaching 5.8 million in 1987, armed members of the ANC and PAC stage raids on South Africa from their bases in Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

The regime responds by renewing a series of states of emergency, unleashing its police, and sending its military forces on counter-strike raids.

Media restrictions are tightened and the UDF and other activist organisations are effectively banned.

As a result opprobrium for the regime grows around the world. More foreign investors withdraw, banks call in loans, the currency collapses, economic production declines and inflation becomes chronic.

1988 – Mandela is diagnosed with tuberculosis. He is moved to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, 50 km northeast of Cape Town.

In May South African President P.W. Botha, a National Party hardliner, directs the head of his intelligence service, Niel Barnard, to meet secretly with Mandela at Verster to discuss the possibility of a peace settlement. More than 60 similar meetings will follow.

1989 – The “secret” talks culminate with a face-to-face meeting between Mandela and Botha at Botha’s presidential office on 5 July.

When Botha offers him his freedom if he renounces the use of violence Mandela refuses. In the first public statement heard from him in 20 years, Mandela says, “I cannot and will not give any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. I will return.”

Botha subsequently resigns following a stroke and is replaced by F.W. de Klerk, a moderate within the National Party.

Mandela meets with de Klerk in December. Negotiations on the terms and conditions for Mandela’s release begin.

1990 – On 2 February de Klerk announces that Mandela will be released. He also rescinds the orders banning the ANC, the PAC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other previously illegal organisations. Restrictions on the UDF and the media are lifted.

Mandela is finally released from prison on Sunday 11 February. He is 71 years old and has spent the past 27 years in custody. He immediately reaffirms his statement from the Rivonia trial but refuses to renounce the armed struggle, refuses to call for the lifting of international sanctions against South Africa until further progress is achieved, and refuses to accept an interim power-sharing arrangement proposed by the government.

In March he is elected deputy president of the ANC. He is now faced with the difficult task of reconciling not only the black majority with the white oppressors but also the various factions within the antiapartheid movement.

Representatives of the government and the ANC met in Cape Town in May to begin planning for formal negotiations on a transition, the so-called “talks about talks.” In June Mandela and de Klerk met officially for the first time. In August Mandela announces the suspension of the ANC’s armed struggle. In October the government repeals the law requiring the races to use separate amenities.

1991 – Negotiations continue on the transition. By April, 933 of the country’s estimated 2,500 political prisoners have been released. On 5 June the government repeals the law making it illegal for Africans to own land in urban areas and the law segregating people by race. A new law allows all races equal rights to own property anywhere in the country. The law assigning every resident of South Africa to a specific racial group is repealed on 17 June. The international community responds by lifting most of the sanctions on South Africa.

On 7 July, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa since the organisation was banned in 1960, Mandela is elected president of the ANC. Sisulu is elected deputy president and Tambo is elected the organisation’s national chairperson.

Also in July, Mandela travels to Cuba to personally thank Cuban President Fidel Castro for assisting the fight against the apartheid regime. Cuban troops helped to drive South African forces from Angola in the 1970s and 1980s, an outcome that secured Angola’s independence, paved the way for the independence of neighbouring Namibia and provided added impetus for the final downfall of apartheid in South Africa.

1992 – White South African’s overwhelmingly vote “yes” in a referendum asking if the reform of apartheid should be continued. In September, following a request by Mandela, 400 political prisoners are released. Mandela divorces his now estranged wife Winnie during the year.

1993 – The negotiations on the transition conclude towards the end of the year. It is agreed that a five-year ‘Government of National Unity’ with a majority-rule constitution will be formed following South Africa’s first truly multiracial democratic election, scheduled for April 1994.

The new constitution guarantees all South Africans “equality before the law and equal protection of the law”, full political rights, freedom of expression and assembly, and the right to “choose a place of residence anywhere in the national territory.”

Mandela and de Klerk are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December for “their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new, democratic South Africa.”

“Many people have remarked on the apparent lack of bitterness that characterises Mandela’s conduct since he was released from prison,” the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee says in his presentation speech.

“He himself has said that perhaps he would have harboured bitter thoughts if he had not had a job to do. Then he adds as an afterthought that if only all those who have made such great sacrifices for the sake of justice could see that they have not been in vain, that would serve to eliminate the bitterness from their hearts.”

Full copy of presentation speech.

Accepting the award, Mandela speaks of his hopes for “the renewal of our world.”

“Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates,” he says.

“Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.

“Let the efforts of us all, prove that he was not a mere dreamer when he spoke of the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace being more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

“Let a new age dawn!”

Full copy of acceptance speech.

1994 – The ANC wins the country’s first all-race elections.

Over four days beginning on 26 April more than 22 million South Africans, or about 91% of registered voters, go to the polls.

The ANC secures nearly 63% of the vote, missing the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally change the constitution. The National Party gets about 20% of the vote, becoming the second largest party in the parliament.

On 9 May the National Assembly unanimously elects Mandela president. De Klerk is elected one of two deputy presidents.

Mandela is inaugurated on 10 May at a ceremony in Pretoria, the South African capital. In his inaugural address he stresses the need for reconciliation and once again quotes his own words from the Rivonia trial, reaffirming his determination to create a peaceful, nonracial society.

“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,” he says, ” Their dreams have become reality.”

The ministry of the new government includes blacks, whites, Afrikaners, Indians, coloureds, Muslims, Christians, communists, liberals and conservatives.

In June the government announces that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate human rights abuses and political crimes committed by both supporters and opponents of apartheid between 1960 and 10 May 1994. Guidelines for the commission’s operations are set and Archbishop Desmond Tutu is appointed as its chair.

Meanwhile, Mandela pledges one-third of his salary for five years for the establishment of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. He will also found the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship Foundation.

1996 – A new South African constitution that bars discrimination against the country’s minorities, including whites, is signed into law by Mandela on 10 December. The new constitution contains a bill of rights and ends the Government of National Unity. The ANC takes government in its own right. The National Party becomes the opposition.

1997 – Mandela resigns as president of the ANC.

On 22-23 October he travels to Libya for talks with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi about ways to end UN sanctions imposed on the country in 1992 following its refusal to hand over two alleged intelligence agents indicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It is Mandela’s third trip to Libya since his release from prison.

Gaddafi had provided the South African resistance movement with ongoing support during the apartheid era, a stance for which Mandela feels a debt of gratitude. “This man (Gaddafi) helped us at a time when we were all alone, when those who say we should not come here (Britain and the US) were helping the enemy,” Mandela says.

1998 – On his 80th birthday Mandela marries Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, who was killed in a plane crash 12 years earlier.

1999 – Mandela finally convinces Gaddafi to hand over the two Lockerbie bombing suspects. The two are subsequently tried in a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. One of the two will be acquitted, the other, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, is found guilty and sentenced to 20 years of solitary confinement in a prison in Glasgow, Scotland.

The ANC wins the general election held on 2 June, increasing its majority.

Mandela bows out of politics, stepping down as president of South Africa and returning to live at his birthplace in Transkei. However, his retirement is short-lived and in December he is appointed by the UN to lead talks aimed at ending a six-year old civil war in the African state of Burundi.

“I really wanted to retire and rest and spend more time with my children, my grandchildren and of course with my wife,” Mandela will later say. “But the problems are such that for anybody with a conscience who can use whatever influence he may have to try to bring about peace, it’s difficult to say no.”

2002 – Mandela reenters South African public life when he begins to question the government’s approach to the HIV-AIDS crisis in the country.

South Africa has the highest number of HIV infections in the world, with about 4.7 million people, or one in nine of the population, carrying the virus. However, the government refuses to support the widespread use of retroviral drugs to treat the epidemic and suggests that poverty may be the real cause of AIDS.

Mandela calls for strong leadership, stating that it is “the key to any effective response in the war against HIV.”

In August Mandela reveals that one of his nieces and two sons of a nephew have died from AIDS. “We must encourage our relatives who are HIV-positive to disclose their status so they can be helped and attended to,” he says.

Mandela will later set up the 46664 HIV-AIDS awareness campaign.

On 2 September Mandela joins the growing number of world figures critical of plans by the administrations of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to launch a preemptive, unilateral attack on Iraq.

“We are really appalled by any country, whether a superpower or a small country, that goes outside the UN and attacks independent countries,” he says. “No country should be allowed to take the law into their own hands … What they (the US) are saying is introducing chaos in international affairs, and we condemn that in the strongest terms.”

In an interview published in the 16 September issue of ‘Newsweek’ magazine Mandela goes further in his criticism, saying that if you consider the past “mistakes” of US foreign policy “you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.”

Mandela believes that any action against Iraq should be implemented through the UN and calls on Iraq to allow the unconditional return of weapons inspectors. He offers to act as an intermediary between the UN and Iraq.

2003 – On 30 April Mandela officiates at ceremony marking a transfer of power in Burundi agreed to during the negotiations he has mediated. However, fighting between the government and rebel groups continues and it is generally considered that Burundi remains on the brink of civil war.

2004 – Mandela’s first wife, Evelyn Mase, dies in May.

On 21 September Mandela opens the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Commemoration, an archive of his papers and records. The centre is located at the offices of the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg.

“The history of our country is characterised by too much forgetting,” Mandela says at the opening.

“One of our challenges as we build and extend democracy is the need to ensure that our youth know where we come from, what we have done to break the shackles of our oppression, and how we have pursued the journey to freedom and dignity for all.”

2005 – On 6 January Mandela reveals that his only surviving son, Makgatho Mandela, has died of AIDS.

“Let us give publicity to HIV/Aids and not hide it, because the only way of making it appear to be a normal illness just like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died of HIV,” Mandela says.

Later in January Mandela backs a plan by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to establish a “Marshall plan” to tackle poverty and debt in Africa. Mandela says be will travel to London in February to lobby for the proposal at a meeting of G7 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and US) finance ministers.

Prior to the G7 meeting Mandela tells a large crowd gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square that it is time to free the millions of people in the world’s poorest countries who are “trapped in the prison of poverty.”

“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made, and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life,” he says.

The meeting of the G7 finance ministers agrees in principle to write off up to 100% of debts owed by 37 of the world’s poorest nations.

Back in South Africa, the National Party, which introduced the apartheid system after coming to government in 1948, officially disbands on 9 April. The party had received less than two percent of the vote at general elections held in 2004.

2007 – Mandela celebrates his 89th birthday on 18 July, marking the occasion with the launch of a group of eminent world-leaders, to be known as the ‘Elders’. The brainchild of entrepreneur Richard Branson and musician Peter Gabriel, the members of the group will, according to Mandela, use “their collective experience, their moral courage and their ability to rise above nation, race and creed (to) make our planet a more peaceful and equitable place to live.”

Members of the group include Desmond Tutu, former US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, former Irish president Mary Robinson, philanthropist Muhammad Yunas, Indian women’s rights campaigner Ela Bhatt, and Mandela’s wife Graca Machel. The increasingly frail Mandela will not play an active role in the group.

On 29 August a bronze statue of Mandela is unveiled outside the Houses of Parliament in London. The statue will remain in Parliament Square as a permanent tribute to Mandela, alongside status of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.

“The history of the struggle in South Africa is rich with stories of heroes and heroines, some of them leaders, some of them followers. All of them deserve to be remembered,” Mandela says at the unveiling ceremony.

“Though this statue is of one man, it should in actual fact symbolise all those who have resisted oppression, especially in my country.”

2008 – In June, Mandela comments on the turmoil in Zimbabwe, where long-term President Robert Mugabe is accused of using fear, violence and intimidation to stay in power.

Speaking in London on the eve of celebrations for his 90th birthday, Mandela says, “We look back at much human progress, but we sadly note so much failing as well. We watch with sadness the continuing tragedy in Darfur. Nearer to home, we had seen the outbreak of violence against fellow Africans and the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe.”

Meanwhile, the US officially removes Mandela and the ANC from its terrorism watch list. Mandela was added to the list in the 1980s.

2009 – In April, Mandela comes out of retirement to back the campaign of ANC presidential candidate Jacob Zuma. Zuma wins the election and is confirmed as the third elected president of post-apartheid South Africa.

2010 – The UN General Assembly declares 18 July “Nelson Mandela International Day.”, calling for annual commemorations to recognise Mandela’s “leading role in and support for Africa’s struggle for liberation and Africa’s unity.”. source: http://www.nelsonmandelaonline.net/

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