Essay on Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela did some helpful things in his life but other people thought it was unacceptable and so he went to jail for no reason. Nelson Mandela was a great leader and left a legacy by winning epic political battles, by making everyone have their rights, and he was president not for the rich stuff but to help out with people’s health, housing, and education. In these next paragraphs they will talk about Nelson Mandela’s childhood. Also about his life in jail and why he went to jail. Lastly, about his president life and how he became president.

In the 1960s, many of the colonial nations of Africa were gaining independence. The ANC was encouraged and campaigned for democracy in South Africa. They were mild campaigns at first, but as the government became more hostile, so did ANC protests. In November 1961, a military branch of the party was organized with Mandela as its head. It authorized the limited use of arms and sabotage against the government, which got the government’s attention—and its anger! Mandela went into hiding in 1964, he was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was a sad day for black South Africa.

Mandela was a very important leader in the struggle against apartheid. Like many other struggle leaders, he was thrown in jail more than once and spent 27 years of his life in jail. He became an important symbol for human rights and anti-apartheid campaigns all over the world. In 1990 he was finally released from jail, and he became an important leader in the talks with President F.W. de Klerk about a South Africa free from apartheid.

While in prison many other ANC leaders were also found and arrested. They were all put on trial (Rivonia Trial) for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison at the maximum security Robben Island Prison. Although in a maximum-security prison, Mandela was still able to keep in contact with the anti-apartheid movement secretly. For 18 years Mandela stayed at Robben Island, where he lived under harsh conditions with other political leaders. This time spent in the prison changed his attitude and made him become the great political leader that he is today. He realized that violence was not the answer to all his problems. Furthermore, many would think that this imprisonment would hurt the anti-apartheid movement, but in reality it helped much more. Many world leaders demanded that Mandela be

The government was whites-only. Most black people were poor.They worked on farms, and in factories and gold mines. Nelson went to a mission school, and then to college at Fort Hare University, he studied law, but left the university in 1939, after student protests about the way it was run. He went on with his studies, and became a lawyer in 1942. In 1944, Nelson Mandela joined the African National

Mandela quoted “There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence” suggesting that non-violent protesting will not attract the government’s attention. Mandela undergoes military training in secret in January 1962 and to raise funds for a possible armed fight. His returned to South Africa in July 1962 led to his five years of imprisonment with hard labour for illegally leaving the country. Due to Mandela’s involvement in radical, violent attacks, Mandela and seven other members were sentence to life imprisonment to Robben Island, narrowly avoiding capital punishment at the Rivonia trail. During the trials, Mandela quoted in his Rivonia trial speech “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” This displays the motives of Mandela into changing the South African society to be equal for

Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa from 1964-82. During the period of his imprisonment his public reputation grew. Upon his release from prison, he was considered the most prominent leader in black South Africa and he was a strong symbol of resistance in the anti-apartheid movement. Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s president in 1994. His main leadership qualities characteristics were his determination, persistence, focus and will.

Nelson Mandela took part in ending the apartheid. An apartheid is a restriction that started around 1949, on nonwhites’ basic rights and barred them from government while white minority rule. On January 8, 1912, in South Africa, the African National Congress was created by a group of Africans, colored, and Indians. In the 1940s, Mandela became the leader of peaceful protests and armed resistance against the white minority’s oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa. In 1950, the ANC adopted the African National Congress Youth League’s plan to achieve full citizenship for all South Africans through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and other nonviolent methods. In 1952, Mandela and another member of the ANC opened South Africa’s first black law firm, which offered free or low-cost legal counsel to those affected by apartheid legislation. The black law firm also helped lead the ANC’s campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws. Mandela and 155 other activists were arrested and put on trial for treason on December 5, 1956, due to acts of civil disobedience. While Mandela was locked up, tensions throughout the ANC started to escalate. The next year, on March 21, as nonviolent black protestors were protesting by singing Africans songs all day, so that they could overload the prisons, police opened fire on the crowd. Sixty nine people were killed, along with another 189 wounded.

Nelson Rohihlahia (stirring up trouble) Mandela was born on 18 July 1918, near Umtata, in the Transkei region of South Africa. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela was trained to become the next chief to rule his tribe, but he was also a determined student and eventually joined an all black college, Fort Hare, where he was expelled for joining a student boycott. He later obtained an arts degree in Johannesburg and studied law at the University of Witwatersrand. Before apartheid, South Africa had a long history of racial

Mandela was then sentenced to life in prison. Throughout the years of his imprisonment at Robben Island the world continued to put sanctions on South Africa. This created pressure inside and outside of the country for Mandela’s release. After being in prison for 27 years, Mr. Mandela was finally released and granted freedom.

In 1964, he was found guilty of sabotage and treason and spent three decades in the Robben Island Prison. Mandela turned the prison experience into an ANC school, teaching other blacks about politics and other freedom fighters like Gandhi (Lockard 959). Nelson Mandela fought against apartheid for years with protests/strikes and by leading the ANC.

Nelson Mandela was a man who learned from his previously violent ways and thoroughly used peace to his advantage in his fight against apartheid, and in the leading of South Africa. Nelson Mandela grew up as a peaceful person and in 1943 went to law school for his degree. While in law school, he got very interested in politics and joined a radical protest group, the African National Congress (The ANC). The ANC got into a lot of trouble with the government for their ideas about a place without apartheid. Mandela was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to life in prison. The government let him out of

Nelson Mandela was the man who abolished Apartheid, freeing South Africa from the binds of racial segregation forever. However, it was not an easy road and Mandela needed patience, strength of character, focus, passion, understanding, perseverance, and most importantly, forgiveness, to achieve this. For more than forty years, black South Africans were subject to the harsh racial segregation of the Apartheid system; despite making up over 70% of South Africa’s population, they had little to no rights.

I have always thought that Nelson Mandela has been one of the most important people in history. I find it very fascinating that one man could end the Apartheid and that is why I want to find out more about this. South Africa is a country with a past of enforced racism and separation of its multi-racial community. The White Europeans invaded South Africa and started a political system known as 'Apartheid' (meaning 'apartness'). This system severely restricted the rights and lifestyle of the non-White inhabitants of the country forcing them to live separately from the White Europeans. I have chosen to investigate how the Apartheid affected people’s lives, and also how and why the Apartheid system rose and fell in South Africa.

From 1964 to 1982, Mandela was kept in a maximum-security prison. In 1988, he was hospitalized for tuberculosis. Amidst increasing global pressures, the South African government under President F.W. de Klerk released Mandela from prison on February 11, 1990. On March 2, Mandela was chosen deputy president of the ANC, and he replaced the president in July 1991. Mandela and de Klerk worked to end apartheid and bring about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy in South Africa.