Nelson Mandela

Holland, Gini. Nelson Mandela. 2002. 48p. ISBN 0-8368-5078-5. Available at B MAN on the library shelves.

One of the best known figure of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela took a stance against a racist and segregated South Africa and became its first black president. Born in 1918, Mandela was a member of the hereditary ruling family, but a falling out between his father and the local chief led to a return to his mother’s village. Upon his father’s death he returned to the court where he was educated both in leadership and social skills as well as in contemporary subjects taught in Methodist schools.

He was exposed to his second-class citizen status in his twenties, when he worked in Johannesburg as a night watchman in a mine. He realized that the majority of the population, which was black, was oppressed by a small minority of white people, descendents of the original Dutch, French and English settlers. The whites had devised a system of political and physical oppression known as the Apartheid, meaning apart. Mandela knew he had to fight against this system of exploitation.

He started the first black law firm in Johannesburg, and joined the African National Congress. At the same time the state was increasing police powers and jailing opponents, and soon Mandela found himself in jail, accused of treason. Condemned to life in prison, he spent more than two decades performing hard labor. On the outside, however, South Africans were organizing to fight the government. Riots, demonstrations, and boycott from other countries further isolated South Africa until its white minority had no choice but to grant political right to its majority.

In 1990, Mandela was freed from prison and pushed for further reforms. In 1994, he was elected to serve as the country’s first black president. During his administration he pushed for the Truth and Reconciliation commission, which studied the crimes perpetrated against the South African people.

Mandela retired from political life in 1998 but continued to be involved in making South Africa a better country for all of its people until his death in 2013.