Nelson Mandela

From ArticleWorld

Nelson Mandela is a celebrated anti-apartheid activist with a long history in the South African politics.

Biography

On July 18, 1918, Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Mvezo, a small village in the Umtata district. Mandela’s father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was a counselor to the Thembu king, a position Mandela was to adopt upon his father’s death. Mphakanyiswa had four wives and thirteen children.

Mandela began attending a local mission school at age seven, where a teacher gave him the name Nelson. Mandela was educated at a Wesleyan mission school and later attended the Clarkebury Boarding Institute and then Fort Hare University, where he was asked to leave after boycotting the Students Representative Council.

Mandela, a ward if the Regent since his father’s death in 1927, and his friend Justice, the Regent son, fled to Johannesburg to escape arranged marriages. He found work in a law firm and finished his undergraduate degree at the University of South Africa and then studied law at University of Witwatersand.

Mandela joined the African National Congress in 1942, which worked to disable the white minority government. In 1948, the victory of the National Party brought racial segregation to South Africa. Mandela led the ANC’s 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People.

The ANC was largely non-violent, but Mandela and 150 other were arrested for treason and eventually acquitted during the Treason Trial. Revolution moved slowly for the ANC during the 1950s and acquired the support of a small group of whites. In the 1959, militant black activists broke away from the ANC and founded the Pan Africanist Congress. Subsequently, the PAC received widespread support throughout the world while the ANC was perceived as passive and run by white communists.

Mendela was arrested on August 5, 1962, after spending nearly a year and a half on the run. During his time underground, Mendela led the ANC’s armed wing Spear of the Nation, which planned for sabotage and possible guerilla warfare.

Mandela and other ANC leaders were arrested and charged with several capital crimes, including sabotage and treason-related, and sentenced to life in prison starting on June 12, 1964. Mandela served twenty six years and was released in February 11, 1990 thanks to ANC campaigning and international pressure.

On April 27, 1994, South Africa held its first democratic election. The ANC won and Mandela became South Africa’s first black president. He served from May 1994 till his retirement in June 1999.

Mandela been married three times and is the father of three children from his first wife.

From 1999 to 2004, Mandela served as a social and human rights activist, calling attention to HIV/AIDS and poverty.

At 85, Mandela retired from public life.

Partial list of awards

• Lenin Peace Prize (1962)
• Bharat Ratna (1990)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1993)
• Order of Merit (1995)
• Order of St. John (1999)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000)
• Honorary Companion of the Order of Canada (2001)
• Freedom of City of Johannesburg (2004)