Who was Nelson Mandela and why his story still speaks to children
Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, and when he was released he did not seek revenge: he chose to lead the country that had imprisoned him, trying to hold it together instead of dividing it further.
Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, and when he was released he did not seek revenge: he chose to lead the country that had imprisoned him, trying to hold it together instead of dividing it further.
He was born on 18 July 1918 in Mvezo, a village in South Africa's Eastern Cape, and his father gave him the name Rolihlahla, which means "pulling the branch of a tree", in the sense of someone who causes trouble. The name Nelson came later, on his first day at school, when his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave every child an English name, as was customary at mission schools at the time.
As a young man, he joined the African National Congress, the movement that opposed apartheid: the system that, from 1948, separated South Africans according to the colour of their skin, denying Black people the right to vote, freedom of movement, a choice of work and even a choice of where to live. For years Mandela fought through peaceful means, including boycotts and civil disobedience campaigns. Then, when the government answered protests with violence and outlawed the ANC, he became convinced that armed resistance was also necessary and led a branch of the movement devoted to sabotaging strategic targets while seeking to avoid harming people.
He was arrested in 1962 and, in 1964, at the end of the Rivonia Trial, sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent eighteen years in Robben Island prison, on an island off Cape Town where Black political prisoners were treated with particular harshness, enduring forced labour in a limestone quarry and small, damp cells. With his fellow prisoners he organised lessons in history, law and politics, and the place became known among them as the University of Robben Island: some entered unable to read or write and left with a degree. Mandela himself continued studying law by correspondence whenever he was allowed to do so.
He was later transferred to other prisons on the mainland, where conditions improved and the first secret contacts with the government began. He was released on 11 February 1990, after twenty-seven years in prison altogether. Instead of feeding the anger he would have had every right to feel, he worked alongside President Frederik de Klerk to dismantle apartheid through negotiation. In 1993, the two men were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1994, South Africa held its first elections open to people of every race, and Mandela became the country's first Black president, serving until 1999. He governed by trying to hold together a nation that had been divided by law for decades, and he promoted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which invited victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era crimes to speak publicly about what had happened. A year after his election, he wore the green-and-gold Springboks jersey, until then a symbol of the old white South Africa, to present the Rugby World Cup to the national team's captain: a gesture the whole country still remembers as one of the defining moments of reconciliation.
He died in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013, aged ninety-five.
And who was the boy who pulled branches and caused trouble in Mvezo before becoming Madiba, the name by which South Africa still affectionately calls him? That is the question the book Nelson Mandela, from The Great Heroes collection, explores for young readers, one chapter at a time.