Childhood
Education
A.N.C (Africian national congress)
Imprisonment
Life in Prison
Nelson's release
R.I.P Nelson Mandela
Facts
Tribute songs
10 questions I would ask Nelson
Mandela
Rohlilaha Mandela was born 18th of July
1918.
As a young boy, Rohlilaha grew up in a
small village of thatched huts.
His father was chief of the Thembu tribe and
was friendly with a retired teacher.
One day this teacher suggested that Mandela
should be sent to school as he was a very
bright young boy.
This came as a shock to the Mandelas as
none of the children had ever gone to school
before.
 Nevertheless at the age of just seven Mandela set
out across the hills to a small shack that served as
a school to poor black children.
 On the first day of school his teacher gave him the
name Nelson. At that time South Africans were
usually given an African and a Westren name.
 One evening as he returned home from school he
was shocked to hear that his father had died.
 The new chief of the Thembu tribe decided to adopt
Nelson as his son.
 In his new home he developed a great interest in
African history and Black African heroes.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a well
educated man.
He is a great believer in education and lifelong learning.
It was at the Wesleyan mission school that he
first attended that he was given the name
Nelson.
This formal schooling was not the only
Mandela education though.
 As the son of a tribal councilor he learned the
art of listening which helped in his role as a
leader and peacemaker throughout his life.
From there he went (in 1937) to the
usual college for Thembu royalty –
Healdtown in Fort Beaufort.
At the Fort Hare University Nelson
Mandela became involved in the
Student Representative Council.
Following a boycott there he was given
an ultimatim he could either back down
or leave. Nelson choose to leave the
univeresty and from then the Nelson
Mandela education took a change of
direction.
Rather than follow through on his guardians
wish for an arranged marriage the young
Nelson took off to Johannesburg.
He completed his Bachelor of Arts studies
there through the University of South Africa
through correspondence.
Mandela then went on to study law at the
University of Witswatersrand.
Nelson Mandela university life was
interrupted by his involvement in the ANC. He
and his friend Oliver Tambo opened the first
black legal practice in South Africa, giving
affordable and often free advice to black
people who could otherwise not afford it.
 The African National Congress was founded in 1912
(6 years before Nelson Mandela's birth) to unite the
African people against white minority ruling.
 Their aim has always been to create a non-racial and
democratic South Africa.
 Nelson Mandela and ANC have become almost
synonymous.
 Nelson Mandela joined the ANC in 1943. From that
time on he never lost his vision for the ideals that the
ANC stands for.
 In the ANC Mandela found the way to a free South
Africa but it did not come without a high price.
Shortly after joining the ANC Nelson
Mandela, together with his friend and
partner Oliver Tambo and Walter Sislu,
formed the Youth League of the
congress.
 Initially, in line with the ANC's Defiance
campaign the ideals of peaceful noncompliance and protests were the order
of the day.
As things progressed, more specific
areas were targeted, but always with the
intention that no person would be hurt or
injured.
In 1956, 156 members of the ANC were
arrested and tried for treason.
The Riviona trial lasted from 1956-1961 and
eventually all members, including Mandela,
were acquitted.
In 1959, under the leadership of Potlako
Leballo and Robert Sobukwe the Pan
Africanist Congress (PAC) was formed.
This depleted the ANC's numbers and
finances dramatically.
Following the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960
however, a new Nelson Mandela ANC came
into being.
Mandela realized that peaceful protest was
getting them nowhere and so he co-founded
and became leader of the Umkhonto we
Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation branch of the
ANC.
This name is also abbreviated as MK. With
this branch of the ANC Nelson Mandela
recognized and was ready to demonstrate
the need for a less passive approach to
achieving the goal of freedom.
In 1962 the A.N.C was banned
and soon after Nelson was
arrested and convicted of
sabotage and planning to over
throw the government.
Finally in 1964, after a four and a
half year triall Nelson was
sentenced to life in prison.
Nelson served his time in Robben
island prison.
A warder's first words when Nelson
Mandela and his ANC comrades arrived
were: "This is the Island. This is where
you will die."
They faced a harsh regime in a new cell
block constructed for political
prisoners.
 Each had a single cell some seven foot
square around a concrete courtyard,
with a slop bucket. To start with, they
were allowed no reading materials.
Prisoner 46664, as he was known the 466th prisoner to arrive in 1964 would be the first to protest over illtreatment and he would often be
locked up in solitary as punishment.
 On February Nelson Mandela was released from
prison after 27 years.
 Accompanied by his wife Winnie, Mandela left the
Victor Verster prison (renamed Drakenstein
Correctional Centre) on the outskirts of Paarl and
was driven 60 km to Cape Town by African National
Congress's (ANC) Rose Sonto along a route lined
by thousands of supporters.
 On the balcony of the City Hall he spoke to a crowd
of approximately 50,000 people, who had waited for
hours to see him. He started by expressing his
sincere and warmest gratitude to the "millions of
my compatriots and those in every corner of the
globe who have campaigned tirelessly for my
release".
South African President Jacob Zuma announced that
Mandela, "the founding president of our democratic
nation, has departed," adding that he "passed on
peacefully."
"Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have
lost a father," Zuma said.
The former South African president had been suffering
from a recurring lung infection, and the Daily Telegraph
reports that his friends and family had gathered at his
bedside at his time of death.
 He had a cameo in a Spike Lee film: He had a big part in Spike Lee's
1992 biopic "Malcolm X." At the very end of the movie, he plays a teacher
reciting Malcolm X's famous speech to a room full of Soweto school kids.
But the pacifist Mandela wouldn't say "by any means necessary." So Lee
cut back to footage of Malcolm X to close out the film.
 The evolution of Nelson Mandela The evolution of Nelson Mandela
 There's a woodpecker named after him: From Cape Town to California,
streets named after Mandela abound. But he's also been the subject of
some rather unusual tributes. Last year, scientists named a prehistoric
woodpecker after him: Australopicus nelsonmandelai. In 1973, the
physics institute at Leeds University named a nuclear particle the
'Mandela particle.'
 He married a first lady: Before tying the knot with Mandela on his 80th
birthday, Graca Machel was married to Mozambique President Samora
Machel. Her marriage to Mandela after her husband's death means she
has been the first lady of two nations.
 He was a master of disguise: When Mandela was eluding authorities
during his fight against apartheid, he disguised himself in various ways,
including as a chauffeur. The press nicknamed him "the Black
Pimpernel" because of his police evasion tactics. "I became a creature of
the night. I would keep to my hideout during the day, and would emerge
to do my work when it became dark," he says in his biography, "Long
 A bloody sport intrigued him: Besides politics, Mandela's other
passion was boxing. "I did not like the violence of boxing. I was
more interested in the science of it - how you move your body to
protect yourself, how you use a plan to attack and retreat, and how
you pace yourself through a fight," he says in his biography.
 His favorite dish is probably not yours: He's been wined and dined
by world leaders. But what Mandela loved eating most was tripe.
Yup, the stomach lining of farm animals.
 He quit his day job: He studied law at the University of
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and opened the nation's first black
law firm in the city in 1952.
 9. He was on the U.S. terror watch list: Mandela wasn't removed
from the U.S. terror watch list until 2008 -- at age 89. He and other
members of the African National Congress were placed on it
because of their militant fight against apartheid.
 He drew his inspiration from a poem: While he was in prison,
Mandela would read William Ernest Henley's "Invictus" to fellow
prisoners. The poem, about never giving up, resonated with
Mandela for its lines "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of
my soul." You may know it from the movie by the same name
starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela.
In the 1980s, a number of musicians raised
their voices to call for the freedom of Nelson
Mandela. (The fight against apartheid, as the
documentary Amandla! highlighted, was
waged partly with music.)
The most famous of these protest songs, in
the U.S. at least, is probably 1984’s “(Free)
Nelson Mandela” by the Specials, which
reached No. 9 on the U.K. charts and helped
to make Mandela’s cause more widely known
in Great Britain and elsewhere.
Who was your role model?
If you had not encouraged positive
discrimination, how different do you think
South Africa would be today?
Is there anything else you would like to
change about today's South Africa?
What advice would you give to the young
people of South Africa?
Due to your time on Robben island would
you change the conditions of prisons?
Is there anything in your life you would
have done differently?
What did you find hardest about life in
prison?
Would you want your children to follow
in your footsteps?
Did you keep in contact with anyone
from your prison
What type of new industries would you
like to be introduced to South Africa?