BIOGRAPHY OF NELSON MANDELA

Biography
Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in
Mvezo, Transkei, on July 18, 1918, to Nonqaphi
Nosekeni and Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela,
principal counsellor to the Acting King of the
Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo.
His father died when he was 12 years old (1930)
and the young Rolihlahla became a ward of
Jongintaba at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni.*
Hearing the elder’s stories of his ancestor’s valour
during the wars of resistance, he dreamed also of
making his own contribution to the freedom struggle
of his people.
He attended primary school in Qunu where his
teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the name Nelson,
in accordance with the custom to give all school
children “Christian” names.
He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury
Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a
Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where
he matriculated.
Nelson Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of
Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare
but did not complete the degree there as he was
expelled for joining in a student protest.
He completed his BA through the University of South
Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation
in 1943.
On his return to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni
the King was furious and said if he didn’t return to
Fort Hare he would arrange wives for him and his
cousin Justice. They ran away to Johannesburg
instead, arriving there in 1941. There he worked as
a mine security officer and after meeting Walter
Sisulu, an estate agent, who introduced him to Lazar
Sidelsky. He then did his articles through a firm of
attorneys, Witkin Eidelman and Sidelsky.
Meanwhile he began studying for an LLB at the
University of the Witwatersrand. By his own
admission he was a poor student and left the
university in 1952 without graduating. He only
started studying again through the University of
London after his imprisonment in 1962 but also did
not complete that degree.
In 1989, while in the last months of his
imprisonment, he obtained an LLB through the
University of South Africa. He graduated in absentia
at a ceremony in Cape Town.
Nelson Mandela, while increasingly politically
involved from 1942, only joined the African National
Congress in 1944 when he helped to form the ANC
Youth League.
In 1944 he married Walter Sisulu’s cousin Evelyn
Mase, a nurse. They had two sons, Madiba
Thembekile ‘Thembi’ and Makgatho and two
daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom
died in infancy. They effectively separated in 1955
and divorced in 1958.
Nelson Mandela rose through the ranks of the
ANCYL and through its work, in 1949 the ANC
adopted a more radical mass-based policy, the
Programme of Action.
In 1952 he was chosen at the National Volunteer-in-
Chief of the Defiance Campaign with Maulvi Cachalia
as his deputy. This campaign of civil disobedience
against six unjust laws was a joint programme
between the ANC and the South African Indian
Congress. He and 19 others were charged under the
Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the
campaign and sentenced to nine months hard
labour, suspended for two years.
A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed
Nelson Mandela to practice law, and in August 1952
he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first
black law firm, Mandela and Tambo.
At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time.
As a restricted person he was only permitted to
watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was
adopted in Kliptown on 26 June 1955.
Nelson Mandela was arrested in a countrywide
police swoop on 5 December 1955, which led to the
1956 Treason Trial. Men and women of all races
found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial
that only ended when the last 28 accused, including
Mr Mandela were acquitted on 29 March 1961.
On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people
in a protest against the pass laws held at
Sharpeville. This led to the country’s first state of
emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan
Africanist Congress on 8 April. Nelson Mandela and
his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among
thousands detained during the state of emergency.
During the trial on 14 June 1958 Nelson Mandela
married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela. They
had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The
couple divorced in 1996.
Days before the end of the Treason Trial Nelson
Mandela travelled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at
the All-in Africa Conference, which resolved that he
should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting
a non-racial national convention, and to warn that
should he not agree there would be a national strike
against South Africa becoming a republic. As soon
as he and his colleagues were acquitted in the
Treason Trial Nelson Mandela went underground
and began planning a national strike for 29, 30 and
31 March. In the face of massive mobilisation of
state security the strike was called off early. In
June 1961 he was asked to lead the armed struggle
and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear
of the Nation).
On 11 January 1962, using the adopted name David
Motsamayi, Nelson Mandela secretly left South
Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited
England to gain support for the armed struggle. He
received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia
and returned to South Africa in July 1962. He was
arrested in a police roadblock outside Howick on 5
August while returning from KwaZulu-Natal where
he briefed ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli about
his trip.
He was charged with leaving the country illegally
and inciting workers to strike. He was convicted
and sentenced to five years' imprisonment which he
began serving in the Pretoria Local Prison. On 27
May 1963 he was transferred to Robben Island and
returned to Pretoria on 12 June. Within a month
police raided a secret hide-out in Rivonia used by
ANC and Communist Party activists, and several of
his comrades were arrested.
On 9 October 1963 Nelson Mandela joined ten
others on trial for sabotage in what became known
as the Rivonia Trial. While facing the death penalty
his words to the court at the end of his famous
‘Speech from the Dock’ on 20 April 1964 became
immortalised:
“I have fought against white domination, and I have
fought against black domination. I have cherished
the ideal of a democratic and free society in which
all persons live together in harmony and with equal
opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for
and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for
which I am prepared to die.”
On 11 June 1964 Nelson Mandela and seven other
accused: Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan
Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias
Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni were convicted
and the next day were sentenced to life
imprisonment. Denis Goldberg was sent to Pretoria
Prison because he was white, while the others went
to Robben Island.
Nelson Mandela’s mother died in 1968 and his
eldest son Thembi in 1969. He was not allowed to
attend their funerals.
On 31 March 1982 Nelson Mandela was transferred
to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with Sisulu,
Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in
October. When he returned to the prison in
November 1985 after prostate surgery Nelson
Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie
Coetsee visited him in hospital. Later Nelson
Mandela initiated talks about an ultimate meeting
between the apartheid government and the ANC.
On 12 August 1988 he was taken to hospital where
he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After more
than three months in two hospitals he was
transferred on 7 December 1988 to a house at
Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his
last 14 months of imprisonment. He was released
from its gates on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine
days after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC
and nearly four months after the release of his
remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his
imprisonment he had rejected at least three
conditional offers of release.
Nelson Mandela immersed himself in official talks to
end white minority rule and in 1991 was elected
ANC President to replace his ailing friend Oliver
Tambo. In 1993 he and President FW de Klerk jointly
won the Nobel Peace Prize and on 27 April 1994 he
voted for the first time in his life.
On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated South Africa’s
first democratically elected President. On his 80th
birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel, his third
wife.
True to his promise Nelson Mandela stepped down
in 1999 after one term as President. He continued to
work with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund he
set up in 1995 and established the Nelson Mandela
Foundation and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation.
In April 2007 his grandson Mandla Mandela became
head of the Mvezo Traditional Council at a
ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place.
Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to
democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible
provocation, he never answered racism with
racism. His life has been an inspiration to all who
are oppressed and deprived; to all who are opposed
to oppression and deprivation.
He died at his home in Johannesburg on 5
December 2013.
*Nelson Mandela's father died in 1930 when Mr
Mandela was 12 and his mother died in 1968 when
he was in prison. While the autobiography Long
Walk to Freedom places Madiba’s father’s death in
1927, historical evidence shows it must have been
later, most likely 1930. In fact, the original Long
Walk to Freedom manuscript (written on Robben
Island) states the year as 1930.