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Self Sacrifice for others, he isn’t free until his people are

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Nelson Mandela, or "Madiba," as he was affectionately known, is arguably the most famous African. A man who gave so much for his people, even his harshest critics agree he was irrefutably an extraordinary man.

But, what made him stand out from numerous other statesmen around the world? Why is he immortalized while many of his contemporaries, even some who arguably achieved more, have slipped into the dustbin of history? After studying him rigorously, below are seven reasons why he was a remarkable leader:

1. Self-sacrifice - A Messiah-like figure to his people, Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his precious life in prison on Robben Island, hammering on rocks in the scorching heat during the day, only to retire to a tiny eight-by-seven-foot concrete cell with only a straw mat to sleep on. When he was offered freedom in 1985, he refused, saying: "I cannot and will not give any undertaking, at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated!"

2. Compassion - It is easy to forgive a stranger, and easier to forgive a friend, but how difficult it is to forgive an enemy. Nelson Mandela forgave his greatest adversary, the Apartheid government, which not only caused tremendous suffering to himself and his family but also to his countrymen. He could have demanded the heads of those who murdered thousands of innocent indigenous South Africans, but he chose the higher route instead. Setting up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he left a legacy of forgiveness and reconciliation, not only for his people but also for the world.

3. He Was a Learner - While in prison, he not only threw himself into the routine of daily exercise, but he also read smuggled books as much as he could. A lover of learning, although he was restricted from access to political books he liked, he ordered books on gardening and horticulture, eventually cultivating food that fed not only his fellow prisoners but also prison officials.He also continued his legal education while in prison, often giving legal advice to both prisoners and prison staff. His zest for learning and teaching was so great that Robben Island became known as "Nelson Mandela University."

4. Ethical - In today's increasingly competitive world, people care less about how you acquire money, power, and wealth, just as long as you amass them. Mandela, on the other hand, put people and honor before worldly gain. At a time when most African presidents were corruptly amassing fortunes during their tenures, Mandela's estate was roughly just US $2.9 million. And, he not only left money for his family but for his staff as well.

5. He Was a Unifier - As the old adage goes, "United we stand, divided we fall." When Mandela took power, he sought to bring whites, blacks, and other minorities together. Some expected him to favor blacks, particularly those from his Xhosa tribe, but because of his vision for a rainbow nation, South Africa is currently benefiting from its rich diversity economically, intellectually, and culturally.The last president of Apartheid-era South Africa, F.W. Deklerk, hailed Nelson Mandela as a "great unifier" who displayed a "remarkable lack of bitterness."

6. He Was a Servant - He focused on the needs of others, not his own, listening to those who society had ignored and sought out those who society had cast away. He served the poor and the rich; he served the educated and the illiterate. There is no one Mandela did not care for. He saw everyone as his brother and sister - even his enemies. While rulers all over the world were busy empowering themselves and their friends, he was busy empowering his people.

7. He Was Human - The media put him on a pedestal, classifying him as an infallible saint - an incorrigible angel who could do no wrong. He became a man of mythical proportions to many in Africa and all over the world. The reality, however, was far from it; Mandela himself never denied his humanity, given to the same weaknesses as everyone else. His first marriage broke down, and so did his second; he was unable to balance being a leader in the home and in the nation. He also failed to raise the kind of children befitting a man of his nobility. He said in an interview, "My first task when I came out was to destroy that myth that I was something other than an ordinary human being." In the end, although disappointing, people were still drawn to him. In fact, his humanity made him even more appealing.

In addition to all of the tips above, below are 15 leadership insights extracted from my books to help you become a great leader too.

1. A hunter's meal is in proportion to his skill.

2. If you follow the herd, people may mistake you for a cow.

3. One who fishes in shallow waters limits the kind of fish he can catch.

4. If you feed a bird, you don't have to force it to come to you.

5. Don't waste time watering a weed hoping to transform it into a flower.

6. The sun does not rise abruptly but perseveres until it rules the sky.

7. A lion does not earn its crown quarreling with sheep.

8. Stand alone when it is to your benefit, with others when it is to your advantage, and with everyone when it is to your empowerment.

9. An army of disciplined sheep is greater than an army of undisciplined wolves.

10. Don't poison a river whose fish you might need tomorrow.

11. Fortune hides behind the action.

12. A bee does not need to follow you to give you honey: you follow it. Become a person of value, and you too won't have to beg anyone to follow you.

13. If an eagle is teaching you to fly, ignore the advice of turkeys.

14. An ambitious wolf will rise above a complacent lion.

15. A shark does not ask for permission to rule the waters.

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7 Reasons Why Nelson Mandela Was a Great Leader (by Matshona Dhliwayo)

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Nelson Mandela, or "Madiba," as he was affectionately known, is arguably the most famous African. A man who gave so much for his people, even his harshest critics agree he was irrefutably an extraordinary man. But, what made him stand out from numerous other statesmen around the world?

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Humble, relentless, knew what his goal was, worked through peace, worked for something much larger then just himself

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The Outstanding Leadership Traits Of Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Mandela was one of the most outstanding leaders of the 20th century. He led a non-violent movement that succeeded in completely undoing the unjust system of Apartheid in South Africa. His leadership was a lynchpin of the movement, even when he was in prison. Anyone who wants to develop their…

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At a circumcision ritual the chief said that they wouldn’t be able to attain wealth because of the social barrier. This gave Nelson motivation to fight social norms to give people like him a better chance in life to succeed and be humans

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Nelson Mandela was the first Black president of South Africa, elected after time in prison for his anti-apartheid work. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

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I think not wanting to leave prison because his fellow Africans are still locked up is very powerful as well as a mature repones to being Locked up

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At first Mandela was seen as someone who’s goals were too hard to accomplish and an inefficient thinker
Eventually people started loving his messages because it gave them hope for a better and more equal life, even though they had never seen him on tv

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A fitting way to commemorate Nelson Mandela is to describe his arrival in the townships during the first democratic elections in 1994. The crowds travelled up to 100 miles in cattle trucks or minibuses to get to places that apartheid had deliberately made remote and barren. Then they waited for hours, in a ramshackle stadium with little shade. Despite being punctual in his personal life, Mandela on the campaign trail was always late: a victim of overambitious scheduling and inefficient minders.

A fitting way to commemorate Nelson Mandela is to describe his arrival in the townships during the first democratic elections in 1994. The crowds travelled up to 100 miles in cattle trucks or minibuses to get to places that apartheid had deliberately made remote and barren. Then they waited for hours, in a ramshackle stadium with little shade. Despite being punctual in his personal life, Mandela on the campaign trail was always late: a victim of overambitious scheduling and inefficient minders.

Finally, the crowds saw his cavalcade throw up dust in the distance, and they began to sing the campaign song Sekunjalo Ke Nako (Now is the Time). Everyone started to dance, ululations and cheers growing in intensity. Many of those present had not seen Mandela even on TV, and knew his face only from posters and newspaper pictures. Flags and placards hoisted above heads created a ripple at first, then a wave of excitement on a sea of black, gold and green.

The rush of energy did not subside until Mandela had taken the stage half an hour later. By then the crowd had got what it came for - proximity, a sighting, to be present in history. For hours after the rally, people walking home from the stadium punched the air and shouted "amandla" ("power") at passing cars.

The problem with personifying a national, political aspiration, as Mandela did, is that it becomes difficult to see where the man starts and the movement ends. In the end, only death could separate him from that conundrum. Symbol, emblem, father of the nation, embodiment of the movement; for most of his life he had few opportunities just to be himself. Barbara Masekela (sister of jazz trumpeter Hugh), who looked after him during his 1994 campaign, described how he would try to give her and the bodyguards the slip in airports, just for the chance to browse in the shops on his own.

"The moment he stepped out of prison he was national property, and it was as if we were lucky to get 10 minutes of his time for the family," said Winnie Mandela, at a time when she was already estranged from him. "I think the family is still waiting for him. Psychologically he hasn't come out of prison, in the sense that now he is back for the people. It has really been a continuation of the kind of life where the family didn't have access to him."

While Mandela's time in jail was what eventually made him famous, his actual arrest, imprisonment and conviction in 1962 were not exceptional. They chimed with the fate of those middle-class Africans and people of African descent who led the struggle for racial equality, civil rights and post-colonial democracy, not just locally but globally.

Between his initial arrest and his conviction at Rivonia, several countries - Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya and Zanzibar - became independent, and the civil rights act was on its way into law in the United States.

Mandela's final words from the dock struck a chord across continents. "I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. 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."

His speech would only become well known decades later. For what was always truly remarkable about Mandela's story is not that he was jailed when he was (the apartheid regime thought nothing of murdering Steve Biko 13 years afterwards), but that he was in prison for so many years. Long after the rest of the world had abandoned the crudest forms of segregation, at a time when Malcolm X's grandchildren had started school and the Berlin Wall had come down, apartheid was still standing.

"The same mistakes that we made were made in the United States and the ex-colonies," FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid-era South Africa, once told me. "Then we carried them on for around 20 years longer."

Mandela and South Africa became symbolic of unfinished business: the final chapter in the narrative of ending formal segregation. The anti-apartheid campaigns, which made Mandela's imprisonment their focus, were in a sense anachronistic in the late 20th century, and were a rare clear-cut moral cause, of which Mandela stood as an unimpeachable champion.

This led to a sanctification that was as hard for him personally as it was helpful for the movement politically. He was not an apparatchik. But with the liberation of the country dominating his life, everything else took second place. After being in prison for so long, he was not in a position to make mistakes. However, he not only had a symbolic status but was the embodiment of huge, pent-up expectations - so once released, he could only disappoint.

For some on the left he was insufficiently strident. He sold arms to Indonesia, proceeded too softly with many dictators and left too many of apartheid's economic inequalities intact.

As an activist he had embraced the ANC's Freedom Charter, a statement of core principles, which included such demands as "land to be given to all landless people" and "living wages and shorter hours of work". But as president he emerged into a unipolar world, dominated by neo-liberal globalisation, and his new government had to negotiate its way to stability. Arguably, it had a stronger hand in these negotiations than it thought. Mandela could, at that time, have got a better deal for the poor by following a more redistributive agenda.

Others strained only to see him as a moral force; not so much post-racial as post-partisan. Subscribers to the big man theory of history, and others who simply wanted to put Mandela on a pedestal to establish a distance between him and the lesser mass of black South Africans, tried to recount the country's recent history as the personal triumph of a principled leader over ignorant and unruly followers. Towards the end of Mandela's first term, I attended an emigration seminar, where the speaker mesmerised an overwhelmingly white audience with an apocalyptic vision. Holding up a copy of When Mandela Goes, a book by journalist Lester Venter, he said: "People - this book is a wake-up call. The bad news is that [when Mandela goes] the pawpaw's really going to hit the fan.

"The good news is the fan probably won't be working."

It is important to recall just how widespread these fears of chaos and incompetence were when Mandela was released. Majority rule, many claimed, would lead to communism, internecine tribal warfare and economic collapse. While these forebodings were more than tinged with racial disparagement, events elsewhere on the continent gave them credibility. By the time Mandela took the stage at the Grand Parade rally in Cape Town to claim victory and do what is now know as the Madiba Jive, the Rwandan genocide was well under way.

Most criticisms of Mandela as a leader were simplistic because they started from the basis of proving or disproving his sanctity, rather than trying to understand him for who he was: a political leader guiding a developing country through a transitional phase. His singular and considerable achievement was to pave the way for a stable democracy.

He was never a revolutionary. While other freedom fighters on the continent were embracing socialism and pan-Africanism, Mandela at his trial praised the country's former colonial power. "I have great respect for British institutions and for [Britain's] system of justice. I regard the British parliament as the most democratic in the world."

But he was always a radical. Comfortable with communists, he could have left jail a lot sooner if he had been prepared to ditch his comrades in the name of pragmatism. More recently he was forthright in his condemnation of the Iraq war, insisting that the attitude of the US was "a threat to world peace".

Once he left office, until his health deteriorated, he remained active in global and local affairs, always strategic in his interventions but often also outspoken. Through his foundation he pursued his campaigns for social justice and reconciliation.

If he had thrived for longer, who knows what he might have done: perhaps revived the non-aligned movement and made it more relevant in a multipolar world, or turned his attentions specifically to the interests of African youth or women. But he was 95. He couldn't live forever. And, for one lifetime, he had done enough.
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Mandela was never a revolutionary, always a radical | Gary Younge

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A fitting way to commemorate Nelson Mandela is to describe his arrival in the townships during the first democratic elections in 1994. The crowds travelled up to 100 miles in cattle trucks or minibuses to get to places that apartheid had deliberately made remote and barren.

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First black president in South Africa
Spent more then 40 years trying to break the apartheid. 27 of those years he spent imprisoned.

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To the Teacher:

Nelson Mandela's death on December 5, 2013, is being marked by people around the world. Mandela, the former president of the Republic of South Africa and Nobel Peace laureate, spent more than 40 years-27 of them in prison-as a central figure in the struggle against South Africa's brutal and restrictive racial regime called apartheid. In 1994, shortly after the fall of apartheid, Mandela was elected President of South Africa in a multiracial, democratic election, making him the country's first black president.

Mandela has been an inspirational figure to people around the world-especially to proponents of racial justice and equality. In addition to being an icon of resistance and perseverance, Mandela was also a symbol of peace, having presided over the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy and having pursued a plan of national reconciliation.

This exercise invites students to think about the history of apartheid in South Africa, the long struggle against it, and Nelson Mandela's legacy as a leader in that struggle. The first reading provides an historical overview of the apartheid system, the origins of the African National Congress, and the freedom struggle against apartheid. This reading describes Mandela's role as an anti-apartheid activist. The second reading examines the fall of apartheid in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the transition to multiracial democracy, and the opening of Nelson Mandela's presidency-particularly his establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Questions for discussion follow each reading.

Following the readings, this lesson includes an extended research and critical thinking activity. Students are invited to do independent or group research on the Jim Crow system of segregation that long prevailed in the American South and to compare and contrast it with South African apartheid.

Although Europeans first colonized what is now the country of South Africa in the middle of the 17th century, it was not until the 1948 election of the Afrikaner-led National Party that the system of apartheid-with which the nation of South Africa came to be so closely associated for the second half of the 20th century-was formally instated. While this strict system of racial classification and segregation drew on a variety of existing measures that had limited the rights of non-whites, the 1950s saw a dramatic expansion of discriminatory laws.

Under apartheid, the South African population was divided into four distinct racial groups: white (including Afrikaners, who speak a Germanic language called Afrikaans), black, colored, and Indian. Strict residential, economic, and social segregation was enforced on the basis of these racial categories. Non-whites were not allowed to vote in national election. Moreover, apartheid saw the institution of the "homeland system," in which the government sought to establish separate states for members of each of the country's many black ethnic groups. This often involved the forced removal of families from their original homes to the newly-created "bantustans" (or ethnic states). In other cases, it meant breaking up interracial and inter-ethnic families. While non-whites were confined to squalid ghettoes with few decent educational and employment opportunities, whites were afforded the basic privileges of life in a democracy.

In a 1955 article, Nelson Mandela-then a leading activist in the growing fight against apartheid-described the horrors of the system and the brutal means by which it was enforced:

The breaking up of African homes and families and the forcible separation of children from mothers, the harsh treatment meted out to African prisoners, and the forcible detention of Africans in farm colonies for spurious statutory offenses are a few examples of the actual workings of the hideous and pernicious doctrines of racial inequality. To these can be added scores of thousands of foul misdeeds committed against the people by the government: the denial to the non-European people of the elementary rights of free citizenship; the expropriation of the people from their lands and homes to assuage the insatiable appetites of European land barons and industrialists; the flogging and calculated murder of African laborers by European farmers in the countryside for being "cheeky to the baas"; the vicious manner in which African workers are beaten up by the police and flung into jails when they down tools to win their demands; the fostering of contempt and hatred for non-Europeans; the fanning of racial prejudice between whites and non-whites, between the various non-white groups; the splitting of Africans into small hostile tribal units; the instigation of one group or tribe against another; the banning of active workers from the people`s organizations, and their confinement into certain areas.

Because of the injustices it perpetuated, the apartheid system gave rise to a broad resistance movement. The primary organization leading the struggle against apartheid was the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC was founded in 1913 in response to the oppression of non-white South Africans at the hands of the white ruling class. In 1943, Nelson Mandela-then a law student-joined the ANC and co-founded its youth division, the ANCYL. Mandela and other young activists had begun to advocate for a mass campaign of agitation against apartheid. In 1949, the ANCYL gained control of the ANC and a year later Mandela was elected national president of the ANCYL. Around this time, Mandela's political outlook began to shift: while he had previously opposed cross-racial unity in the fight against apartheid, he came to be influenced by the writings of socialist thinkers who supported organizing across racial lines. He was also influenced by the nonviolent strategies of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was himself a resident of South Africa for more than 20 years, from 1893 to 1914.

The new leadership of the ANC steered the organization towards a strategy of nonviolent direct action-including strikes, boycotts, and other acts of civil disobedience. This was known as the "Defiance Campaign." In a 1950 conference that launched the campaign, the ANC-led coalition released a statement saying:

All people, irrespective of the national group they belong to and irrespective of the color of their skin, who have made South Africa their home, are entitled to live a full and free life.

Full democratic rights with direct say in the affairs of the government are the inalienable right of every South African - a right which must be realized now if South Africa is to be saved from social chaos and tyranny and from the evils arising out of the existing denial of the franchise of vast masses of the population on the grounds of race and color.

The struggle which the national organizations of the non-European people are conducting is not directed against any race or national group. It is against the unjust laws which keep in perpetual subjection and misery vast sections of the population. It is for the creation of conditions which will restore human dignity, equality and freedom to every South African.

Mandela later recalled of the effort:

Prior to the campaign, the ANC was more talk than action. We had no paid organizers, no staff, and a membership that did little more than pay lip-service to our cause. As a result of the campaign... the ANC emerged as a truly mass-based organization with an corps of experienced activists who had braved the police, the courts, and the jails... From the Defiance Campaign onward, going to prison became a badge of honor among Africans.
( The Long Walk To Freedom, Abacus Edition, pg. 159).

During their nonviolent resistance, many protesters were rounded up and arrested as the government moved to outlaw any opposition. Mandela and several colleagues were arrested in the 1950s, but they were ultimately acquitted at the end of a long treason trial in 1961.

In an attempt to squash resistance, the South African government also resorted to violent repression. The bloodiest incident was in 1960, when police opened fire on a group of 7000 protesters in the town of Sharpeville, killing 69 of them. In response to this growing repression by security forces and the clampdown on nonviolent forms of dissent, Mandela and other ANC leaders decided that the movement should have an armed wing, similar to other revolutionary movements against colonialism in Africa at the time. In the early 1960s, Mandela traveled internationally to raise money for an armed struggle. The armed wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation) carried out acts of sabotage designed to destroy government property without killing civilians-detonating bombs to destroy government military installations, transportation infrastructure, and power plants. In two trials in 1962 and 1963, Mandela was found guilty of inciting workers' strikes and sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. He was sentenced to life in prison and spent the next 27 years of his life behind bars, often under brutal conditions. While in prison, Mandela and other political prisoners engaged in many political debates and discussion. The prison on Robben Island, where Mandela stayed for 20 years, was sometimes called "University of Robben Island."

Although he was sidelined from direct participation in the movement while in prison, Mandela became a symbol-both in South Africa and internationally-of the struggle against injustice. During his imprisonment on Robben Island, the fight against apartheid continued. New organizations and leaders emerged to advance the cause, and thousands of average South Africans risked their lives to resist the brutal system. A powerful international movement included boycotts and bans of South African goods; protests, including massive civil disobedience; and an explosion of music and art demanding the end of apartheid and the freeing of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.

Violence and instability grew within South Africa. The apartheid government faced increasing domestic and international pressure. In 1985, then President P.W. Botha offered to release Mandela from prison if he agreed to "unconditionally reject violence as a political weapon." Mandela refused the offer. He wrote: "What freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people [the ANC] remains banned? Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts."

Despite his recognition as a central figure in the fight against apartheid, Mandela has always been quick to note that he was not personally responsible for its overthrow. As he said upon his release from prison in 1990: "I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands."

For Discussion:

1. Do students have any questions about the reading? How might they be answered?

2. According to the reading, what were some of the defining features of the apartheid system?

3. How did young people influence the mounting struggle against apartheid in the 1950s?

4. What was the Defiance Campaign and what were its aims?

5. Many South Africans took action against apartheid despite great risk to themselves and their families. Are there any causes or issues that are important enough to you today that would motivate you to speak out, even at personal risk?

Student Reading 2:
The End of Apartheid and the Beginning of National Reconciliation

By the 1980s, resistance to apartheid had reached its peak. Many feared that a civil war in South Africa was inevitable. At last, leaders of the ruling National Party were left with little choice but to consider a drastic change of course. In 1989, F.W. de Klerk assumed the presidency of South Africa. He promptly began discussions to free Mandela and to legalize the ANC. By February 1990, both had been done.

With Mandela free and with the ANC serving as the primary political party of the country's non-white majority, apartheid appeared to be on its last legs. Nevertheless, as representatives of the ANC and the ruling National Party held often-contentious negotiations, government security forces collaborated with tribal nationalists to spread violence. Finally, the ANC and the National Party came to an agreement that a multiracial national election would be held. In April of 1994, Nelson Mandela-the ANC's candidate-became to the first black president in South Africa's history. This victory represented the official end of apartheid and a moment of major triumph for black South Africans.

For several years before the fall of apartheid, white South Africans had been dreading its end, fearing that it would be the beginning of a campaign of retaliatory genocide against whites. In June 1990, David Zucchino, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, spoke with a white South African who expressed such concerns:

[Johan] Fuhri, a stolid rancher who traces his South African ancestors to 1789, knows in his Afrikaner heart that de Klerk has violated the cardinal rule of his nation and his people: Black and white shall remain forever apart.

Fuhri senses the walls of apartheid falling. Blacks are beginning to demand the white man's rights. He believes de Klerk is giving away too much too fast to the blacks. "To them, justice and kindness is weakness. Violence and power is what they understand," Fuhri, 40, said one evening after his house had been locked up for the night, with his family tucked safely inside. "They'll murder each other, these blacks, and then they'll murder us."

Fear crept into his voice. The once docile blacks of the lowveld are starting to talk back to whites, he said. They are getting "cheeky" and stoning whites who drive too close to the black townships.

Instead, under Mandela's leadership, the ANC led the country a path toward reconciliation. Rather than seeking revenge for decades of oppression, Mandela and his administration pursued a policy to smooth the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy. The push for national reconciliation was motivated partly by a desire to prevent any further racial violence and to keep South Africa's white population from fleeing the country in mass. Mandela made numerous high-profile visits to important figures in the apartheid regime, aiming to exemplify forgiveness. To this end, his government also established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In a 2001 discussion of the commission in the New York Times, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf described its purpose and function:

The commission was established in 1995, as a constitutional compromise to avert continued bloodshed. Many members of the African National Congress demanded Nuremberg-style trials of white officials, who were seeking a general amnesty before agreeing to relinquish power. In principle, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered amnesty from prosecution only to individuals who candidly confessed their political crimes in public. Government reparations replaced victims' rights to bring civil suits, and those who did not receive amnesty were to be subject to prosecution. [T]he commission's main goal was to heal wounds.

The transition to democracy did not solve all of South Africa's problems. Today, many South Africans continue to face crime and poverty, and the freedom struggle did not achieve its goal of establishing economic justice. Nevertheless, Mandela will be remembered for his personal dedication to healing the nation's wounds after the downfall of a regime as brutal and entrenched as apartheid. As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin wrote in a June 9, 2013 article:

Mandela's genius was his ability to forgive, and a charisma that let him convince his black countrymen to do likewise, and convinced his white countrymen that he meant what he said. Not all South Africans believed him, but - at least in his lifetime - they accepted his approach.

This combination - charisma and a strategic willingness to forgive one's ethnic oppressors - is so rarely found among leaders of other troubled countries as to be almost unique to Mandela. To grasp the full significance of this man you only need to look at states that desperately need a Mandela but aren't lucky enough to have one...

Mandela's policy of reconciliation quelled the most lurid fears of South African whites. When the Philadelphia Inquirer revisited the Fuhri family in 1997, their position had softened significantly-in no small part thanks to Nelson Mandela:

Like many Afrikaners, Fuhri stockpiled food and weapons before the 1994 elections, anticipating that blacks would come rushing over the prairie to take his house - and his daughter, too.

But even after blacks won political control of South Africa - something unimaginable to many whites seven years ago - the wave of revenge never happened. ...In 1990, Fuhri called Mandela "Satan himself.'' The moment Mandela came out of the prison gate, Fuhri said then, "it struck me with such fear I wanted to hide.''

His views have since softened, somewhat. ``Now we call Mandela a gentle old man,'' said Fuhri.

While the struggle for justice continues for South Africans facing poverty and inequality, Mandela stands as an inspirational figure for people around the world-especially to opponents of racial discrimination.

For Discussion:

1. Do students have any questions about the reading? How might they be answered?

2. According to the reading, what were some of the fears of white South Africans upon the fall of apartheid? How did racism fuel these fears?

3. What was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Why did Mandela's administration pursue a policy of reconciliation with its long-time opponents?

4. What do you think of this? Do you think those who were in positions of power under apartheid should have been more severely punished? Why or why not?

5. While they have gained political rights, many black South Africans still face poverty and inequality. Do you think the methods of the freedom struggle have relevance in confronting these continuing injustices?

Research and Critical Thinking Activity

By the time apartheid was being formalized in South African law in 1948, blacks in the southern United States had been living under a system of racial segregation for more than half a century. This system, known as Jim Crow, was a set of laws and informal practices put in place in the late 19th century, following the abolition of slavery and the US government's effective abandonment of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

Supporters of Jim Crow tried to justify it by arguing that although blacks and whites were separate, they were equal. But in reality, racial segregation meant vastly inferior conditions for blacks.

Apartheid and Jim Crow bore many similarities, but in other ways they were quite different. What were some of those similarities and differences?

For this activity, assign students, in groups or individually, to visit the library or search the internet for information on the apartheid and Jim Crow systems. Then have students create a Venn diagram noting the similarities and differences between the two systems. Ask students to present their findings to the class.

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Nelson Mandela & the Fight Against Apartheid

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To the Teacher: Nelson Mandela's death on December 5, 2013, is being marked by people around the world. Mandela, the former president of the Republic of South Africa and Nobel Peace laureate, spent more than 40 years-27 of them in prison-as a central figure in the struggle against South Africa's brutal and restrictive racial regime called apartheid.

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Earned a lot of respect from his followers

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Nelson Mandela's Childhood and Education

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, into a royal family of the Xhosa-speaking Thembu tribe in the South African village of Mvezo, where his father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa (c. 1880-1928), served as chief. His mother, Nosekeni Fanny, was the third of Mphakanyiswa's four wives, who together bore him nine daughters and four sons. After the death of his father in 1927, 9-year-old Mandela-then known by his birth name, Rolihlahla-was adopted by Jongintaba Dalindyebo, a high-ranking Thembu regent who began grooming his young ward for a role within the tribal leadership.

Did you know? As a sign of respect, many South Africans referred to Nelson Mandela as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name.

The first in his family to receive a formal education, Mandela completed his primary studies at a local missionary school. There, a teacher dubbed him Nelson as part of a common practice of giving African students English names. He went on to attend the Clarkebury Boarding Institute and Healdtown, a Methodist secondary school, where he excelled in boxing and track as well as academics. In 1939 Mandela entered the elite University of Fort Hare, the only Western-style higher learning institute for Black South Africans at the time. The following year, he and several other students, including his friend and future business partner Oliver Tambo (1917-1993), were sent home for participating in a boycott against university policies.

After learning that his guardian had arranged a marriage for him, Mandela fled to Johannesburg and worked first as a night watchman and then as a law clerk while completing his bachelor's degree by correspondence. He studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, where he became involved in the movement against racial discrimination and forged key relationships with Black and white activists. In 1944, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and worked with fellow party members, including Oliver Tambo, to establish its youth league, the ANCYL. That same year, he met and married his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1922-2004), with whom he had four children before their divorce in 1957.

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress

Nelson Mandela's commitment to politics and the ANC grew stronger after the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, which introduced a formal system of racial classification and segregation-apartheid-that restricted nonwhites' basic rights and barred them from government while maintaining white minority rule. The following year, the ANC adopted the ANCYL's plan to achieve full citizenship for all South Africans through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience and other nonviolent methods. Mandela helped lead the ANC's 1952 Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, traveling across the country to organize protests against discriminatory policies, and promoted the manifesto known as the Freedom Charter, ratified by the Congress of the People in 1955. Also in 1952, Mandela and Tambo opened South Africa's first Black law firm, which offered free or low-cost legal counsel to those affected by apartheid legislation.

On December 5, 1956, Mandela and 155 other activists were arrested and went on trial for treason. All of the defendants were acquitted in 1961, but in the meantime tensions within the ANC escalated, with a militant faction splitting off in 1959 to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). The next year, police opened fire on peaceful Black protesters in the township of Sharpeville, killing 69 people; as panic, anger and riots swept the country in the massacre's aftermath, the apartheid government banned both the ANC and the PAC. Forced to go underground and wear disguises to evade detection, Mandela decided that the time had come for a more radical approach than passive resistance.

Nelson Mandela and the Armed Resistance Movement

In 1961, Nelson Mandela co-founded and became the first leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), also known as MK, a new armed wing of the ANC. Several years later, during the trial that would put him behind bars for nearly three decades, he described the reasoning for this radical departure from his party's original tenets: "[I]t would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and nonviolence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle."

Under Mandela's leadership, MK launched a sabotage campaign against the government, which had recently declared South Africa a republic and withdrawn from the British Commonwealth. In January 1962, Mandela traveled abroad illegally to attend a conference of African nationalist leaders in Ethiopia, visit the exiled Oliver Tambo in London and undergo guerilla training in Algeria. On August 5, shortly after his return, he was arrested and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison for leaving the country and inciting a 1961 workers' strike. The following July, police raided an ANC hideout in Rivonia, a suburb on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and arrested a racially diverse group of MK leaders who had gathered to debate the merits of a guerilla insurgency. Evidence was found implicating Mandela and other activists, who were brought to stand trial for sabotage, treason and violent conspiracy alongside their associates.

Mandela and seven other defendants narrowly escaped the gallows and were instead sentenced to life imprisonment during the so-called Rivonia Trial, which lasted eight months and attracted substantial international attention. In a stirring opening statement that sealed his iconic status around the world, Mandela admitted to some of the charges against him while defending the ANC's actions and denouncing the injustices of apartheid. He ended with the following words: "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."

Nelson Mandela's Years Behind Bars

Nelson Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison, a former leper colony off the coast of Cape Town, where he was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing and compelled to do hard labor in a lime quarry. As a Black political prisoner, he received scantier rations and fewer privileges than other inmates. He was only allowed to see his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1936-), who he had married in 1958 and was the mother of his two young daughters, once every six months. Mandela and his fellow prisoners were routinely subjected to inhumane punishments for the slightest of offenses; among other atrocities, there were reports of guards burying inmates in the ground up to their necks and urinating on them.

These restrictions and conditions notwithstanding, while in confinement Mandela earned a bachelor of law degree from the University of London and served as a mentor to his fellow prisoners, encouraging them to seek better treatment through nonviolent resistance. He also smuggled out political statements and a draft of his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom," published five years after his release.

Despite his forced retreat from the spotlight, Mandela remained the symbolic leader of the antiapartheid movement. In 1980 Oliver Tambo introduced a "Free Nelson Mandela" campaign that made the jailed leader a household name and fueled the growing international outcry against South Africa's racist regime. As pressure mounted, the government offered Mandela his freedom in exchange for various political compromises, including the renouncement of violence and recognition of the "independent" Transkei Bantustan, but he categorically rejected these deals.

In 1982 Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and in 1988 he was placed under house arrest on the grounds of a minimum-security correctional facility. The following year, newly elected president F. W. de Klerk (1936-) lifted the ban on the ANC and called for a nonracist South Africa, breaking with the conservatives in his party. On February 11, 1990, he ordered Mandela's release.

Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa

After attaining his freedom, Nelson Mandela led the ANC in its negotiations with the governing National Party and various other South African political organizations for an end to apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government. Though fraught with tension and conducted against a backdrop of political instability, the talks earned Mandela and de Klerk the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1993. On April 26, 1994, more than 22 million South Africans turned out to cast ballots in the country's first multiracial parliamentary elections in history. An overwhelming majority chose the ANC to lead the country, and on May 10 Mandela was sworn in as the first Black president of South Africa, with de Klerk serving as his first deputy.

As president, Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights and political violations committed by both supporters and opponents of apartheid between 1960 and 1994. He also introduced numerous social and economic programs designed to improve the living standards of South Africa's Black population. In 1996 Mandela presided over the enactment of a new South African constitution, which established a strong central government based on majority rule and prohibited discrimination against minorities, including whites.

Improving race relations, discouraging Blacks from retaliating against the white minority and building a new international image of a united South Africa were central to President Mandela's agenda. To these ends, he formed a multiracial "Government of National Unity" and proclaimed the country a "rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world." In a gesture seen as a major step toward reconciliation, he encouraged Blacks and whites alike to rally around the predominantly Afrikaner national rugby team when South Africa hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

On his 80th birthday in 1998, Mandela wed the politician and humanitarian Graça Machel (1945-), widow of the former president of Mozambique. (His marriage to Winnie had ended in divorce in 1992.) The following year, he retired from politics at the end of his first term as president and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki (1942-) of the ANC.

Nelson Mandela's Later Years and Legacy

After leaving office, Nelson Mandela remained a devoted champion for peace and social justice in his own country and around the world. He established a number of organizations, including the influential Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Elders, an independent group of public figures committed to addressing global problems and easing human suffering. In 2002, Mandela became a vocal advocate of AIDS awareness and treatment programs in a culture where the epidemic had been cloaked in stigma and ignorance. The disease later claimed the life of his son Makgatho (1950-2005) and is believed to affect more people in South Africa than in any other country.

Treated for prostate cancer in 2001 and weakened by other health issues, Mandela grew increasingly frail in his later years and scaled back his schedule of public appearances. In 2009, the United Nations declared July 18 "Nelson Mandela International Day" in recognition of the South African leader's contributions to democracy, freedom, peace and human rights around the world. Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013 from a recurring lung infection.

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Nelson Mandela - Quotes, Biography & Death

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The South African activist and former president Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) helped bring an end to apartheid and was an advocate for human rights around the globe.

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Nelson Mandela was a great leader because he was a leader who was also a servant. He worked to break the apartheid in Africa.