A long walk to freedom

BY

NELSON MANDELA
- AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

SREEJITH S J P15052
SUDHARSON CHAKRAVARTHY R P15053
SUSHMEETHA REDDY J P15055
TEJASWINI D P15056
 contents
Part One Part Seven
A COUNTRY CHILDHOOD RIVONIA
Part Two
Part Eight
JOHANNESBURG
ROBBEN ISLAND : THE DARK YEARS
Part Three
Part Nine
BIRTH OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER
ROBBEN ISLAND : BEGINNING TO
Part Four HOPE
THE STRUGGLE IS MY LIFE
Part Ten
Part Five
TALKING WITH THE ENEMY
TREASON
Part Eleven
Part Six
FREEDOM
THE BLACK PIMPERNEL
PART ONE : A COUNTRY CHILDHOOD
 PART ONE :

Born July 18, 1918 in Mvezo, a tiny village in the district of Umtata, the capital of
Transkei, located Eastern Cape of South Africa.

He was born to the village chief Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa and one of his wives,
Nosekeni Fanny.

Named Rolihlahla (literal meaning "pulling the branches of trees", colloquial meaning
troublemaker) Mandela, later acquired clan name Madiba and given Christian name
Nelson by first teacher.

He was the eldest and had 3 younger sisters.

His father was the son of Mandela of the Ixhiba house, a lesser known house of the
Madiba clan.

Transkei was a beautiful country with rolling hills, fertile valleys with thousands of
rivers and streams.

He was raised to be a counselor to the future king Sabata.

 PART ONE (Contd.)

His father served like the PM of Thembu but was an appointed, non-
hereditary leader, and lost his position after a display of insubordination with
the local white magistrate.

This led to increased poverty and NM's mother was forced to move to the
village of Qunu near Umtata when NM was an infant.

Qunu was the village of NM's childhood. Most of the fathers lived away,
working in Johannesburg, and his mother tended the crops of maize (corn or
"mealies"), sorghum, etc.

NM loved to stick fight, fighting boys from other villages. Children were
expected not to ask questions of adults. Religion. The abaMfengu were the
most educated and adapted to the whites.

His mother became a Methodist.

 PART ONE (Contd.)

His father's recommended that NM be sent to school and his parents consented.
He started studying at 7(1925) and was given the name Nelson by his teacher.

His father died of a lung disease 1927 when we was 9. The regent Jongintaba
volunteered to become his guardian and his mother soon took him to the Great
Place, Mqhekezweni, the provisional capital of Thembuland and royal residence
of Jongintaba Dalindyebo and his wife No-England.

Chieftancy and Church dominated his life there. Reverend Matyolo. Mission
schools trained the blacks to become clerks, interpreters, and policemen. NM
became more religious there. He stole maize from Rev. Matyolo and gets
punished.

Tribal meetings held there demonstrated the democracy customary in

Thembuland--consensus was emphasized. But women were second-class
citizens with no voting privileges.
 PART ONE (Contd.)

NM became interested in history, learning about African heroes. Chief Joyi told
Ngangelizwe's heroism fighting the British and rails against the white man.

Joyi says the blacks lived in relative peace until the coming of the white man and
the shattering of their fellowship.

Standard British text books in Africa taught false history and claimed SAs
history began just with the landing of the Dutch Jan Van Riesbeck at the Cape of
Good Hope in 1652.

Winnie was the first crush for NM. He offered to go out with her and she
accepted. But Winnies elder sister disliked NMs appearance and called him a
barbarian, uncivilized and hopelessly backward.

NM was invited by Winnies elder sister for a lunch at their house, only to prove
how uncivilized NM was.
 PART ONE (Contd.)

While others in her family used forks and knives, NM was struggling. He tried
to pick up a piece of chicken with the fork but it kept falling to the plate.

Winnies sister mocked at him. NM felt embarrassed and he thought he was a

failure.

You will waste your whole life if you fall in love with such a backward boy
said her sister.

Inspite of all this, Winnie still loved him.

Later, both went different ways and drifted apart. Eventually, they lost track of
each other.
 PART ONE (Contd.)

He undergoes ritual circumcision at 16 years along with Justice and 26 others,

to become a man and put aside childish ways, it was considered as the
procedure for formal incorporation of males in to society.

After having passed class V, he goes to Clarkebury Boarding Institute in district

of Engcobo the highest institution of learning for Africans in Thembuland. The
regent himself studied there and both Justice and NM were sent to this school.

He is mocked as a country boy initially but becomes friends with Mathona, his
first female friend.

She became the model for all NMs subsequent friendships with women, NM
felt he could confess his weaknesses and fears that he would not even reveal
to his male friends.

NM participated in various sports events but performed mediocre.

 PART ONE (Contd.)

He attends the Weslayan College at Healdtown 1937 at his19, largest

school for Africans.
Principal Arthur Wellington promotes English ideals. Meets other language
speakers and begins to develop a wider identity as an African, not just a
Thembu or Xhosa.
NM takes up long-distance running and boxing. Xhosa poet Krune Mqhayi
visits, exhorts the students and speaks boldly and anti-European about the
clash between European and African cultures. He galvanizes a new sense
of African nationalism in NM.
In 1939 at 21 years, he moves on to University College at Fort Hare in Alice
municipality, it is the only residential center of higher learning for blacks in
SA. Gets his first suit.
Although he had friends connected to the(ANC) and the anti-imperialist
movement who wanted South Africa to be independent of the British
Empire, Mandela avoided any involvement with the movement.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUNG AGE PHOTOS O
NELSON MANDELA
PART TWO : JOHANNESBURG
 PART
Two
NM moves in 1942 to the Witwatersrand Native Labor Association (WLNA)
compound, which was free.

Regent dies 1942, Justice takes his place as chief. NM passes exam for BA
through UNISA.
Click icon to add picture
Graduation attended by his mother, No-England, and K. D. Matanzima
(Daliwonga). He wants NM to return to the Transkei, but NM knows he is moving
toward a different and broader commitment to the people of SA as a whole.

In Aug. 1943, he participates in Alexandra Bus boycotts.

Enrolls at U of the Witwatersrand in atttempt to earn LL.B. as the only black law
student. Encounters mixed racist and liberal attitudes. Did poorly academically.

Arrested when trying to ride a train with them though not allowed as a black
"kaffir.
PART THREE : BIRTH OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER
 PART
THREE
Meets Evelyn Mase, a nurse in training from Engcobo in the Transkei, marries
her in 1945.

As a young man, Mandela moved to Johannesburg and became active in the

African National Congress
Click icon to (ANC), an organization that fought for the rights of
add picture
black South Africans.

Early on, Mandela adopted a leadership role in the ANCs Youth League, a
subgroup that advocated more radical ideals than did the main organization.

SA had long been ruled by unjust racial laws, but the situation changed for the
worse in 1948, when an all-white vote brought the conservative National Party
into power.

From that time onward, the National Party codified and expanded South Africas
racist laws, creating the system of apartheid, which means separateness.
Apartheid laws were not only designed to keep the members of South Africas
many racial groups separate; they were also specifically crafted to keep the
countrys white minority in a position of power and privilege.
 PART THREE
(Contd.)
Apartheid laws prevented black South Africans from leaving tiny reservations
called homelands unless they carried a pass document that proved they held
employment in a white area.

African, Click
mixed-race, and
icon to add Indian South Africans could not legally ride all-white
picture
buses, enter all-white recreation areas, or even sit down to eat dinner with
white friends. Interracial relationships were outlawed, and separate educational
systems were created for each race. By far the lowest educational standards
were introduced for black South Africans, and elite schools like the ones
Mandela had attended were closed.

ANC and partner organizations mobilized against apartheid, instituting the

Defiance Campaign in 1951. During this nonviolent campaign, Mandela and
other volunteers peacefully broke apartheid lawsboarding all-white trains or
entering neighborhoods designated for people of another raceand went to
prison. These actions gained the protesters attention and sympathy from
liberal white South Africans as well as from the rest of the world.
PART FOUR : THE
STRUGGLE IS MY LIFE
 PART
FOUR
In 1952, Chief Albert Luthuli elected new president of ANC. NM was made 1 of
the 4 deputy presidents.

Banning and restrictions on all the leaders of ANC by the government.

Click icon to add picture
NM came up with a contingency plan called the Mandela Plan / M plan, which
was about setting up organizational machinery that would allow ANC to take
decisions swiftly and transmitted to the complete organization without a
meeting.

Has given up on studying for LL. B. after failing exams repeatedly. Passes a
qualifying exam to practice law without LL.B., starts his own practice 1952,
joined by Oliver Tambo--the only black practicing in SA, becomes very much in
demand.

Government relocation of blacks of Sophiatown under Western Area Removal

scheme. NM rashly publicly advocates violence and his opposition to Gandhi
style passive resistance. Criticized for this by the ANC as premature. NM
suggests that Walter Sisulu try to arrange for guns from China (unsuccessful).
 PART FOUR
(Contd.)

NM is forced to resign from the ANC and banned, restricted to Johannesburg

1953. Effort to disbar him. The final Sophiatown removal of Feb. 1955.

ANC draws up to
Click icon a add
list picture
of its principals, the Freedom Charter, and calls for a
national Congress of the People or convention. Invites participation by 200
organizations including the SA Coloured People's Org. (SACPO) and the
Congress of Democrats (COD). The Congress of the People meets 1955, but the
police break it up. Its charter, the Freedom Charter becomes a guiding
document. Some object to its socialist flavor and excess influence of
communism.

1955 travels to Transkei, enjoys African music, sees mother and sisters, visits
Cape Town. Sees that few people in the country are ready to make major
personal sacrifices for the cause.
 QUOTES BY
NM
"For my own part I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I
surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be
won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of
my days." - ANC press statement, June 26, 1961.
Click icon to add picture
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African
people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black
domination.

"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons
will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.

"It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my lord, if needs be
it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." - speech at treason trial, April 20,
1964

"I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the
people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here
today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands." - on release
from prison, February 11, 1990.
 QUOTES BY NM
(Contd.)
"The time for the healing of the wounds has come ... the moment to bridge the
chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us." - on inauguration
as President of South Africa, May 10, 1994.

"No oneClick iconhating

is born to add picture
another person because of the colour of his skin or his
background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to
hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human
heart than its opposite." - from his 1994 autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom.

"It would be a cruel irony of history if Africa's actions to regenerate the continent
were to unleash a new scramble for Africa which, like that of the nineteenth
century, plundered the continent's wealth and left it once more the poorer." - to
the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, July 11, 1997.
 QUOTES BY NM
(Contd.)
"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference
we have made to the lives of others that determines the significance of the life
we lead." - on the 90th birthday of Walter Sisulu, May 18, 2002.

"We liveClick
in a icon to add
world picture
where knowledge and information have made enormous
strides, yet millions of children are not in school. We live in a world where the
AIDS pandemic threatens the very fabric of our lives.

"Yet we spend more money on weapons than on ensuring treatment and support
for the millions infected by HIV. It is a world of great promise and hope. It is also a
world of despair, disease and hunger." - at Live 8 concert in Johannesburg, July 2,
2005.

"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is people who have made
poverty and tolerated poverty, and it is people who will overcome it." - on being
named Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, 2006.

"On my last day I want to know that those who remain behind will say: 'The man
who lies here has done his duty for his country and his people'." 1999.