Mandela, Nelson (1918–)

Born in a small, rural village in racially segregated South Africa, Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, lawyer and political activist, attained international recognition for his commitment to social justice. For many, he has come to personify the struggle against racial oppression in the modern world. Released from prison in February 1990, after 27 years behind bars, Mandela led the African National Congress in the negotiations that led to South Africa's first democratic elections and served as his country's first democratically elected president, from 1994 to 1999. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Mandela's life has entailed, to quote the title of his autobiography, “a long walk to freedom.” When his father, a hereditary chief, died, Mandela was taken into the care of a much more senior chief. From him, Mandela learned that a great chief is able to keep together all of his people, whether traditionalist or reformist, conservative or liberal. Mandela's schooling was completed at Methodist mission schools. In 1939, he moved on to the South African Native College at Fort Hare, then the only Black university in South Africa and thus the key institution forming the new Black South African intellectual and professional elite. Despite being generally apolitical, he was expelled after challenging the university's principal. In 1941, he migrated to the fast-growing “City of Gold,” Johannesburg, where he was employed as a night watchman. Mandela soon moved to a legal firm and began to study law. He was slowly drawn into circles of political activists around the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa.

The ANC had been formed in 1912, just after the establishment of the Union of South Africa. The early ANC was dominated by a mission-educated, Anglophile, professional African elite, whose goal was neither to resist colonization nor to transform it, but rather to achieve full political and economic [Page 868]assimilation into colonial society. But instead of making progress toward a common nonracial society, the ANC spent its first 3 decades in unsuccessful opposition to deepening racial segregation and discrimination. It generally failed to build strong support and was often overshadowed by more ephemeral millenar-ian movements. The Communist Party has also spent much of its short life since 1920 applying inappropriate policies dictated from Moscow.

In 1944, Mandela joined with other young activists, including Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and Anton Lembede, in forming the ANC Youth League. The young radicals espoused an anticolonial African nationalism and were generally hostile to the Communist Party, which they saw as dominated by White and Indian activists and importing foreign ideas. In 1949, the Youth League effectively seized power in the ANC, with Sisulu becoming Secretary-General and Mandela soon being persuaded to become the national executive. In 1950, Mandela was elected president of the Youth League.

The Youth Leaguers quickly radicalized the ANC and pushed it toward greater militancy. Mandela's attitude to both multiracial politics and communism shifted from hostility to support (although Mandela never joined the Communist Party), and he soon emerged as a champion of direct action. In 1952, he was prominent in the ANC-led Defiance Campaign (against “unjust laws”), which resulted in the ANC's membership rising to 100,000. In 1953, Mandela designed the M-Plan (the M standing for Mandela) for rebuilding the ANC's organization. In addition to his political work, Mandela, with Oliver Tambo, ran a legal practice in Johannesburg.

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