| | | On this day in 1990, the great Nelson Mandela was freed after having spent 27 years in various South African prisons. A celebrated civil rights activist, the first black head of state in the nation, and inspiration to many, the actions of he and his peers in the African National Congress were directly correlated with the end to apartheid and ultimately earned him a Nobel Peace Price in 1993. In today’s Daily Dose, we explore Mandela’s life and legacy, how he influenced the political landscape of South Africa and how his lessons can be applied across the world. | | |
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| More than a Man | | | 1 - His Birth and Childhood Nelson Mandela was born into Thembu royalty on July 18, 1918 in Transkei, South Africa, the son of a tribal chief. After being groomed in his youth for a role in tribal leadership, Mandela left to become the first in his family to receive a formal education. He subsequently attended the University of Fort Hare, where he met future business partner Oliver Tambo – a year into his studies, both students (along with several others) were ejected for participating in a boycott against university policies. |
| 2 - What influenced him to drive change After moving to Johannesburg and completing his bachelor’s degree, Mandela went on to study law at the University of Witwatersrand. While there, he became increasingly involved with activists fighting for an end to racial discrimination. In 1944, Mandela and his peers founded the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), with the express intent of encouraging the youth to advance the national fight against segregation. This motive intensified with outcome of the 1948 general election, when the winning National Party began implementing formal policies of segregation and racial classification, now broadly recognized as apartheid. |
| 3 - Escalation and Imprisonment Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) pursued non-violent means, such as boycotts and protests, to advocate for full citizenship rights for all South Africans. In this pursuit, Mandela and Tambo founded South Africa’s first black law firm to provide counsel to victims of apartheid policies. Consequently, Mandela and a number of other activists were arrested on charges of treason for undermining national policy. While all defendants were acquitted, racially motivated violence persisted at the hands of authorities, such as the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. In the aftermath, Mandela co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (or “Spear of the Nation) in 1961 as a militant wing of the ANC, reasoning that “we first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.” In a police raid of an RNC hideout the following year, Mandela and other activists were found with implicating evidence of a planned insurgency and were charged with sabotage, treason (again) and violent conspiracy. Evading the death penalty, they were all charged with life imprisonment. |
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| | | Collaborative Change | | | 1 - Collaborative Change Social progress is rarely made without support, and in its most foundational sense, change is a community effort. Mandela’s success in reforming the social structures came with parallel and collaborative with other anti-apartheid activists. One of these collaborators was long-time friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his contributions in the fight against apartheid. Tutu gave Mandela the platform to give his first speech after his release from prison. Another was future wife Graça Machel , an advocate for Mozambique independence and a central international advocate for women’s and children’s rights. |
| 2 - Recent History The end to apartheid would not have been possible without the support of F.W. de Klerk, the last president during apartheid rule. He received much praise as the figure and a champion of apartheid’s decline by advocating for the referendum leading to its end, going on to receive the Nobel Peace Price jointly with Mandela, and even appointed Executive Deputy President during the first two years of Mandela’s presidency. The current constitution was ratified in December 1996 and was founded on principles of the advancement of human rights and freedoms, including non-racialism and non-sexism, and universal adult suffrage. |
| 3 - Around the World While there is ample evidence and rhetoric of canonized civil rights icons of the past, civil rights abuses persist the world over. The United Nations was founded in 1944 with an express element of its charter being the strengthening of human rights protections. The social responsibility, however, is up to member states and citizen advocates themselves to uphold – we can each donate to human rights organizations (such as Amnesty International), volunteer our time (with organizations such as United Way), or engage in organized demonstrations to progress social causes. |
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| The Fight through Time | | | 1 - Gandhi Gandhi was a major influence for Nelson Mandela in his youth and a guiding force behind the ANCYL’s initial principles of nonviolent resistance. Mandela attributed him to shaping the liberatory movement both in South Africa and India, and drew on many parallels between the efforts of both – such as the mobilization of their respective peoples against oppressive governments. He went so far as to assert that the ANCYL’s revised approach was in itself not contradictory with Gandhi’s strategy of nonviolence, inferring that “violence and nonviolence are not mutually exclusive; it is the predominance of the one or the other that labels a struggle.” |
| 2 - MLK While Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr never met, their timelines distinctly overlapped, as did their strategies. Mandela quoted MLK in his own Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “Let the strivings of us all prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.” And their shared immersion into their life’s work branded them living legends so iconically that each “became a figure so synonymous with racial equality that no one could afford to hate him publicly without questioning the principle itself.” |
| 3 - Malala Yousafzai This 24-year-old women’s rights activist from Pakistan made headlines as a victim of attempted murder at the hands of the Taliban for her activism as a teenager. Her cause? She wanted an education. Undeterred, she continued her fight for social justice and became the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate at 17. Today, she continues to progress the issue of women’s right to education around the world, through the Malala Fund and as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. |
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| | | COMMUNITY CORNER Who do you think is the most important civil rights activist of our time? Share your thoughts at [email protected]. |
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