•Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela 

Nelson Mandela was along with Albert Luthuli one of the most significant leaders in the anti-apartheid movement between 1948 and 1964. Mandela was born in 1918 and a section of a minor African royalty. His father was the chief counsellor to the King on The and he got to study at the University of Forth Hare which was well known for political activism. Mandela was suspended from Forth Hare for partaking in a student protest. In 1941 he flees his home in Qunu to avoid an arranged marriage and ends up meeting Walter Sisulu when he arrives in Johannesburg. Sisal helps him get a job at an attorney firm and alongside his job he studies to obtain his legal articles. He helped defend black people against the segregationist laws.

In 1944 Mandela joins the ANC (the same year as Luthuli). Together with Sisulu and the Africanist Anton Lembede he creates the ANC Youth League and it wasn’t long until he was noted to have good organisational skills. He believed the constitutional approach of the ANC to be dangerously passive and following the NP’s election win in 1948 he was a key figure in the ANC’s decision to adopt the Youth League’s more radical Programme of Action. By late 1949 Nelson Mandela was elected National Executive Committee of the ANC and in 1950 he was appointed President of the Youth League. The Programme of Action was turned into reality through the Defiance Campaign in 1952, much thanks to Mandela. It is possible that Nelson was the party’s most important member in organising civil disobedience. It was during this time Mandela rose and became a well known figure through his involvement in acts of defiance.

The Defiance Campaign was significant for Mandela in other ways too. His first six month banning order following his arrest lead to him being able to take his attorney examination and open Johannesburg’s (and South Africa’s) first Black law firm. Mandela’s experience working together with different groups in the Defiance Campaign convinced him that a common front was important in the anti-apartheid struggle. Up until 1952 Mandela was known as an Africanist  despite having close relations with the SACP Secretary-General Moses Kotane. In the ANC he had also openly opposed communism, however it has since his death in 2013 been known that he served on the central committee of the SACP shortly before his arrest in 1962. He opposed the ”May Day stay-at-home” strike in 1950 because it was organised together with the communists when he thought that the ANC should organise their own campaigns.

Mandela grew closer and closer with the SACP after their relaunch in 1953. He was a significant figure in creating the Congress Alliance and defied banning orders and took part in planning the COP and creating the Freedom Charter. Him and Sisulu watched from the sidelines as the Charter was presented at the Kliptown rally.

The M plan was drafted by Mandela in 1953, a series of measures that was to be adopted if the party was banned and driven underground. Mandela was also active in the response to the Verwoerd’s Bantu Education Act, the Resist Apartheid Campaign and the opposition of the forced removals of Sophiatown following the Western Areas Removal Scheme.

Following the Treason Trials in 1956-1961 Mandela had become a dominant figure in the ANC with Albert Luthuli’s banning orders confining him to rural Stanger. After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and the banning of the ANC through the Unlawful Organisations Act Mandela was one of the reasons the party decided to adopt armed struggle.

When the Treason Trial failed Mandela knew the Government would try to arrest him immediately. He addressed a huge crowd at the All-in African Conference. In his speech he urged the government to admit the error of their ways and to establish a democratic convention representing all South African or else face a strike that would paralyse the country. The NP would eventually accede exactly those demands, however it would take three decades for this to happen. Consolations between president FW de Klerk and a newly released Nelson Mandela in 1990 agreed to create the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). The Convention eventually came to an agreement of a new constitution ending apartheid in 1994.

Mandela knew he would be arrested after his speech and decided to go undercover, hiding at the Liliesleaf Farm. He disguised himself as drivers, gardeners and house boys travelling all over South Africa organising resistance. He became known as the ”Black Pimpernel” for his ability yo avoid the authorities but this all came to an end in 1962 when he was arrested in Johannesburg when he was returning from a trip to Durban. The last year he had been heavily involved in the MK helping them train and grow stronger as an organisation. Following his arrest he was sentenced 5 years in jail for leaving the country without permission. During his time in jail the authorities arrested the remainder of the MK high command hiding at Liliesleaf farm. They were all brought before a court in the Rivonia Trial (1963-1964) being sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island. Mandela's imprisonment in 1964 marks the end of an era in the anti-apartheid struggle. Mandela spend 27 years in prison and was released on February 11th 1990. He became the first black president of South Africa following the ANC’s election victory on April 27th 1994.