Having the blessing of being able to see the sun set, Nelson Mandela can appreciate casual freedom after being locked in a cell during the daytime for 27 years of his life. A man of strong conviction, Mendela refused to compromise with a government structure built on apartheid. Even when offered his freedom by P.W. Botha in February of 1985 on the condition that he publicly “rejected violence as a political weapon, the militant leader of the anti-apartheid ANC(African National Congress), stated, “What freedom is being offered if the organization of the people remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter contracts.” It wasn’t until this day in 1990 that Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl, South Africa by then State President Frederick de Klerk ,who also lifted the ban on the ANC.
Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. As the first member of his family to go to school, his teacher gave him the English name “Nelson”. His political career began in his college years, involving himself in the Students Representatives Council boycott at Fort Hare University against the school’s apartheid policies. Expulsion from Fort Hare did not impede his education nor his political involvement. He completed his B.A. at the University of South Africa and proactively engaged in anti-apartheid movements such as the ANC’s Defiance Campaign in 1952 and the 1955 Congress of the People, which set the pretext for the anti-apartheid cause. In 1961, Mandela became the leader of the ANC’s armed militia known as the Umkhonto we Sizwe or the “Spear of the Nation”. On August 5, 1962, he was arrested for treason and it was discovered that it was the CIA that tipped off Afrikan officials of his whereabouts and disguise. He served 18 of the 27 years of his incarceration on Robben Island, where he was once implicated in a plan of his own escape mapped out by the South African government, in which they would be able to shoot him during his recapture. He was moved to other prisons to keep him away from the new generation of freedom fighters, but because of his age, international pressure, and a change in South African leadership(Botha suffered a stroke), Mandela was released to much fanfare.
Immediately, Mandela was given back his seat at the helm of the African National Congress and led the party to a multi-racial democracy in which he was elected President in 1994. Mandela came to America upon his release and spoke to a crowd of hundreds of thousands at the Harlem State Office Building and received similar recognition around the world. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George H.W. Bush, and the United Nations General Assembly marked November 11 as “Nelson Mandela Day” in 2009. Statues of Mandela currently decorate Parliament Square in London, downtown Johannesburg, South Africa, and the entrance of Drakenstein Correctional Centre, formally known as Victor Verster Prison; the same path that Mandela took his long walk to freedom.
-ShaBe Allah(@KingPenStatus)
