Mandela, born into Thembu aristocracy, became one of the most prominent opponents of South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1950s. Alongside his friend and colleague Oliver Tambo, he co-founded the country’s only Black African law firm, representing clients who had been assaulted by police or abused by the authorities.
As Mandela rose within the African National Congress (ANC), he organized strikes, delivered mass speeches, and openly defied apartheid laws, resulting in repeated arrests. As repression intensified, most starkly after events like the Sharpeville Massacre, Mandela and the ANC concluded that nonviolent protest alone would not force change. They formed an armed wing and began a campaign of sabotage targeting railways, roads, and power infrastructure, aiming to minimize loss of life while maximizing damage to state machinery.
Mandela was arrested in 1962 and later sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy and sabotage. He would spend 27 years behind bars, 18 of them on Robben Island under harsh and isolating conditions.
After his release in 1990, Mandela helped lead negotiations to dismantle apartheid and later became South Africa’s first democratically elected president.
If interested, I write more about Mandela and the end of apartheid here: https://open.substack.com/pub/aid2000/p/hare-brained-history-volume-63-mandela?r=4mmzre&utm\\\\\\\_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
by aid2000iscool
3 Comments
Still bigger than the room I pay 600 euros for. And with the same appliances
I hear he died there.
South African born after the ’94 elections. I am an Afrikaner and a Boer. THERE IS NO GENOCIDE OF BOERS OR AFRIKANERS. Don’t fall for right wing propaganda.
We owe Mandela and his other colleagues – Coured, White, Black, Indian, and other racial minorities – everything. SA today has so much more liberty. (Screw the racists who say we are more corrupt now – the apartheid regime was hella corrupt and much more incompetently
evil).
We have lots and lots of challenges. The US version of that story is a distraction from local democratic politics and recently weak regimes.
#TrumpIsnPoes #UnitedInOurDiversity