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Activists Stop Paying Their Student Loans

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Students who say their for-profit college degrees are worthless took their “debt strike” to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday.

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The Keystone XL pipeline extension, proposed by TC Energy (then TransCanada) in 2008, was initially designed to transport the planet's dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to market-and fast. As an expansion of the company's existing Keystone Pipeline System, which has been operating since 2010 (and continues to send Canadian tar sands crude oil from Alberta to various processing hubs in the middle of the United States), the pipeline promised to dramatically increase capacity to process the 168 billion barrels of crude oil locked up under Canada's boreal forest. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. From the refineries, the oil would be sent chiefly overseas-not to gasoline pumps in the United States.

Keystone XL and tar sands

Some three million miles of oil and gas pipelines already run through our country, but KXL wasn't your average pipeline, and tar sands oil isn't your average crude. It's derived from a sludgy, sticky deposit found beneath the wilds of northern Alberta's boreal forest. These sands contain bitumen, a gooey type of petroleum that can be converted into fuel. It's no small feat extracting oil from tar sands, and doing so comes with steep environmental and economic costs. Nevertheless, in the mid-2000s, with gas prices on the rise, oil companies ramped up production and sought additional ways to move their product from Canada's remote tar sands fields to midwestern and Gulf Coast refineries.

The proposed Keystone XL extension actually comprised two segments. The first, a southern leg, had already been completed and now runs between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Port Arthur, Texas. Opponents of this project-now called the Gulf Coast Pipeline-say that TC Energy took advantage of legal loopholes to push the pipeline through, obtaining authorization under a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nationwide permit and dodging the more rigorous vetting process for individual permits, which requires public input. The second segment was the hotly contested 1,209-mile northern leg-a shortcut of sorts-that would have run from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska.

In 2015, the U.S. State Department, under President Barack Obama, declined to grant the northern leg of the Keystone XL project the permit required to construct, maintain, and operate the pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border-a permit that President Trump later granted and President Biden once again revoked.

Dirty energy lobbyists claimed developing tar sands would protect our national energy security and bring U.S. fuel prices down. But environmental reviews by both the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline would not have lowered gasoline prices. NRDC and its partners also found the majority of Keystone XL oil would have been sent to markets overseas-aided by a 2015 reversal of a ban on crude oil exports.

This lines up with an industry trend: Oil and gas companies are exporting 8.4 million barrels of crude oil and refined fuels every single day. That's up nearly threefold from a decade ago, and an amount equal to 42 percent of our consumption. And these exports are more than 10 times the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Leaks and the pipeline

Tar sands oil is thicker, more acidic, and more corrosive than lighter conventional crude, and this ups the likelihood that a pipeline carrying it will leak. Indeed, one study found that between 2007 and 2010, pipelines moving tar sands oil in Midwestern states spilled three times more per mile than the U.S. national average for pipelines carrying conventional crude. Since it first went into operation in 2010, TC Energy's original Keystone Pipeline System has leaked more than a dozen times; one incident in North Dakota sent a 60-foot, 21,000-gallon geyser of tar sands oil spewing into the air. Less than two years before the project was finally pulled, the Keystone tar sands pipeline was temporarily shut down after a spill in North Dakota of reportedly more than 378,000 gallons in late October 2019. And the risk that Keystone XL would have spilled was heightened because of the extended time the pipe segments were left sitting outside in stockpiles. "A study published in early 2020, co-authored by TC Energy's own scientists, found that the anti-corrosion coating on the project's pipes was damaged from being stored outside and exposed to the elements for the last decade," notes NRDC senior attorney Jaclyn Prange, who spent years working on KXL litigation.

Complicating matters, leaks can be difficult to detect. And when tar sands oil does spill, it's more difficult to clean up than conventional crude because it immediately sinks to the bottom of the waterway. People and wildlife coming into contact with tar sands oil are exposed to toxic chemicals, and rivers and wetland environments are at particular risk from a spill. (For evidence, note the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo River, Michigan, a disaster that cost Enbridge more than a billion dollars in cleanup fees and took six years to settle in court.) Keystone XL would have crossed agriculturally important and environmentally sensitive areas, including hundreds of rivers, streams, aquifers, and water bodies. One was Nebraska's Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water for millions as well as 30 percent of America's irrigation water. A spill would have been devastating to the farms, ranches, and communities that depend on these crucial ecosystems. Even worse, building Keystone XL would have meant enduring those risks just to send the fuel to our overseas rivals-and the profits to Big Oil.

What is tar sands oil?

All facets of the tar sands industry pose a threat to the environment. Its mines are a blight on Canada's boreal, where mining operations dig up and flatten forests to access the oil below, destroying wildlife habitat and one of the world's largest carbon sinks. The mining depletes and pollutes freshwater resources, creates massive ponds of toxic waste, and threatens the health and livelihood of the First Nations people who live near them. Refining the sticky black gunk produces piles of petroleum coke, a hazardous, coal-like by-product. What's more, the whole process of getting the oil out and making it usable creates three to four times the carbon pollution of conventional crude extraction and processing. "This isn't your grandfather's typical oil," says Anthony Swift, director of NRDC's Canada project. "It's nasty stuff."

Keystone XL and climate change

A fully realized Keystone XL would have led to more mining of that "nasty stuff" by accelerating the pace at which it's produced and transported. (Indeed, Keystone XL was viewed as an essential ingredient in the oil industry's plans to triple tar sands production by 2030.)

It would also have led to greater greenhouse gas emissions-which, the latest scientific reports makes clear, we simply can't afford if we're to avoid the most catastrophic climate impacts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initially stated that, on a wells-to-wheels basis, tar sands oil emits 17 percent more carbon than other types of crude, but several years later, the State Department revised this number upward, stating that the emissions could be "5 percent to 20 percent higher than previously indicated." That means burdening the planet with an extra 178.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, the same impact as 38.5 million passenger vehicles or 45.8 coal-fired power plants. Finally, massive fossil fuel infrastructure investments like KXL undermine efforts to minimize global warming and prioritize clean energy like wind and solar. Leading climate scientist and former NASA researcher James Hansen has warned that fully exploiting Canada's tar sands reserves by moving forward with these projects would mean "game over" for our climate. In short, tar sands oil represents no small threat to our environment, and our best stance against it, as the rallying cry goes, is to " keep it in the ground."

Opposition to Keystone XL centered on the devastating environmental consequences of the project. The pipeline faced more than a decade of sustained protests from environmental activists and organizations; Indigenous communities; religious leaders; and the farmers, ranchers, and business owners along its proposed route. One such protest, a historic act of civil disobedience outside the White House in August 2011, resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 demonstrators. "This is not a pipeline to America," said the late civil rights activist Julian Bond, among the many arrested. "It's a pipeline through America, and it threatens to be a disaster for us if it leaks poisons on the way." Leading scientists and economists came out in opposition to the project, in addition to unions and world leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former president Jimmy Carter (together, these and other Nobel laureates have written letters against the project). In 2014, more than two million comments urging a rejection of the pipeline were submitted to the U.S. Department of State during a 30-day public comment period.

But the groundswell of public protest was up against a formidable opponent-hundreds of millions spent on lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. In the two years leading up to the November 2014 midterm elections, the fossil fuel industry spent more than $721 million to court allies in Congress. When industry-friendly politicians took charge of both congressional houses in January 2015, their first order of business was to pass a bill to speed up approval of Keystone XL. ( That effort failed.) Later, fossil fuel companies funnelled millions into Trump's 2017 inauguration ceremony, days after which he brought the Keystone XL project back from the dead, and ramped up federal lobbying efforts in the first months of his administration.

"So what if there's no pipeline? Big Oil will find a way."

One of the central arguments made by pipeline pushers was that tar sands expansion will move forward with or without Keystone XL. This has proved to be untrue. Dealing in tar sands oil is an expensive endeavor. It's costly both to produce and to ship, particularly by rail, which would be an alternative to Keystone XL. Indeed, moving crude by rail to the Gulf costs substantially more than moving it by pipe. For companies considering whether to invest in a long-lived tar sands project (which could last for 50 years), access to cheap pipeline capacity plays a major role in the decision to move forward or not. Without Keystone XL, the tar sands industry has been forced to cancel projects rather than shift to rail, subsequently leaving more of the earth's dirtiest fuel in the ground where it belongs.

The industry also falsely claimed that the pipeline would be a big source of jobs.

When TC Energy said the pipeline would create nearly 119,000 jobs, a State Department report instead concluded the project would require fewer than 2,000 two-year construction jobs and that the number of full-time, permanent jobs would hover around 35 after construction.

When the Obama administration refused to grant the cross-border permit necessary to build TC Energy's Keystone XL oil pipeline in November 2015, it struck a blow against polluting powers and acknowledged the consensus on this misguided project from a wide swath of communities, experts, and organizations. The decision echoed a seven-year State Department review process with EPA input that concluded the pipeline would fail to serve national interests.

Upon entering office, President Trump-with his pro-polluter cabinet of fossil fuel advocates, billionaires, and bankers-quickly demonstrated that his priorities differed. On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an executive order to allow Keystone XL to move forward. On March 28, 2017, his State Department illegally approved a cross-border permit for the pipeline, reversing the Obama administration's prior determination that KXL would not serve the national interest. When that failed-thanks to a lawsuit brought by NRDC and other groups-Trump reissued the cross-border permit himself. "We would score a victory, and it would have huge ramifications for holding off construction at critical times," says NRDC attorney Cecilia Segal, who has worked on KXL litigation since 2017. "But then the Trump administration would do something to undercut us outside of court." The administration also attempted to issue other permits for the project, all based on flawed environmental analyses, eventually prompting more lawsuits, including two from NRDC and its allies.

Opposition outside the courts was swift and strong as well. Farmers, ranchers, tribes, and conservation groups helped keep the project stalled for Trump's full four years in office, despite his best efforts to expedite its approval.

Even as Trump and TC Energy tried to revive the pipeline, polls showed that a majority of Americans opposed it. The market case had also deteriorated. Low oil prices and increasing public concern over the climate led Shell, Exxon, Equinor (then Statoil), and Total to either sell their tar sands assets or whittle them down. Meanwhile, major new tar sands projects stopped moving forward, despite investments from the government of Alberta, Canada. For example, in 2020, Teck Resources withdrew its 10-year application to build the largest tar sands mine in history, citing growing concern surrounding climate change in global markets.

On the campaign trail, Biden vowed to cancel the Keystone XL cross-border permit should he win the presidency-and on his first day in office, he made good on that promise. The revoked permit became the final nail in the pipeline's coffin. By that point, Keystone XL faced an unfriendly administration, numerous legal challenges, declining oil prices, worsening climate impacts, and a growing movement of climate organizers-along the pipeline's route and around the world-unwilling to look the other way. In June 2021, TC Energy announced that it was abandoning its plans for building the pipeline for good-putting an end to a fossil fuel project that had loomed over waterways, communities, and the climate for more than a decade. "Keystone XL was a terrible idea from the start," Swift said. "It's time to accelerate our transition to the clean energy sources that will power a prosperous future."

While the tar sands industry was once seen as an unbeatable opponent in a David-and-Goliath fight, the victory against Keystone XL shows that the tables have begun to turn-and that more power now lies with the advocates for climate justice than ever before. "The era of building fossil fuel pipelines without scrutiny of their potential impact on climate change and on local communities is over," Swift says.
This story was originally published on April 7, 2017, and has been updated with new information and links.

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The controversial Keystone Pipeline project has been at the center of an environmental battle since the year 2008. Here's what you need to know.

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AFSC joins civil disobedience outside State of the Union demanding permanent cease-fire and end to military funding for Israel

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March 7, 2024 (Washington, DC) — Tonight, hundreds of people blocked the route of President Biden’s motorcade as he traveled to the Capitol for his State of the Union address. Protestors, donning shirts that read “Biden’s Legacy = Genocide,” demanded an end to Biden’s funding of Israel’s unrelenting assault on Palestinians in Gaza. Among those participating were several staff and governance members of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – a Quaker organization with staff in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as many other locations around the world. The act of mass civil disobedience concluded a day-long series of protests across Washington, DC centering Palestinian rights, progressive climate justice, labor rights, and immigrant justice.

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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A one-stop source for following crucial trends in the most significant antigovernment protests worldwide since 2017. Last updated on August 26, 2024For a short informational summary of recent pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protests and rallies, click here.

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Email: press@risingup.org.uk
Phone: +447986671716
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Media Assets | Donate #ExtinctionRebellion #TheAmazonIsNotAPasture #AmazonRebellion

This Saturday October 10 Extinction Rebellion groups around the world will join the Global Day of Action for the Amazon.

In London members of Extinction Rebellion UK and Animal Rebellion will gather outside the Embassy of Brazil on Cockspur Street, London, from 2-5pm, with performances, music and speeches from scientists and UK and Brazilian activists.

Attention will be drawn to the highstreet companies most responsible for the destruction of the Amazon, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, McDonald's, Burger King and Subway, and a call made for a boycott in the UK and worldwide.

Open letters to addressed president Jair Bolsanaro, one from Brazilian activists and a second from the Association of Indigenous People's of Brazil, will be delivered to the Embassy.

This Saturday October 10 Amazon Rebellion - with support from Extinction Rebellion groups around the world and Animal Rebellion - will gather outside the Brazilian Embassy in London from 2-5pm to say 'Enough ecocide! Enough Genocide!' [1]

There will be speeches from scientists, UK and Brazilian activists, as well as music performances including live Brazilian drummers, costumed dancers and a choir.

Attention will be drawn to the highstreet companies most responsible for the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, McDonald's, Burger King and Subway, and a call made for a boycott in the UK and worldwide.

Two open letters addressed to President Jair Bolsonaro will be delivered to the Embassy, one from activists in Brazil [2], and a second from the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) - a representative democratic body of indigenous peoples across Brazil. [3]

Mariana Silva, a member of Extinction Rebellion attending the protest, said: "I am taking part in this action in solidarity with the people in South America that have been affected by the fires, in particular indigenous people. It is a real catastrophe. The Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal ecosystems are on fire and the brazilian government, along with many transnational companies, are complicit in the destruction. They continue to privilege profit over people. They favour cattle and soya plantations over biodiversity and indigenous cultures. As a citizen I am demanding change."

The Amazon rainforest is critical for the stability of the Earth's climate and ecosystems. Decades of sustained deforestation and extractivism have destroyed around 20% of the forest, and deforestation rates are currently increasing, as the Brazilian agribusiness lobby and other extractive industries, financed by international markets, seek to extend their reach.

According to a study published in Science Advances in December 2019 the Amazon is now within the danger zone of a planetary tipping point predicted by scientists to start around the 20-25% deforestation mark. [4] The rainforest is in danger of drying out and turning into a savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere and precipitating climate catastrophe and according to a study in Nature Communications in March this year these 'regime shifts' occur faster in larger ecosystems like the Amazon Rainforest. [5]

In Brazil the incessant pressure on territories and natural resources from agribusiness and extractive industries is resulting in systematised ethnocide and ecocide in the Amazon, affecting people and countless other lifeforms. This destruction is perpetrated by companies including JBS, Cargill, Marfrig, Minerva and Bunge, and financed by BlackRock Vanguard, State Street,and banks such as Legal & Genera, BNP Paribas, Santander, Barclays and HSBC. [6]

Indigenous communities in Brazil, who understand the forest to be sacred, are defending the Amazon against all odds for the benefit of humanity and the planet.[7] As a result, they are threatened by escalating violence and murders of environmental defenders in Brazil are among highest in the world.[8]

Soy, beef, leather and other products linked to the destruction of the Amazon enter the UK via global supply chains. These products find their way into supermarkets and fast food retailers including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, SPAR, Costco, Iceland, Morrisons, McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Nandos, Domino's, Yum Brand - the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut among others.[9]
Notes to editors
[1] What is ecocide? https://ecocidelaw.com/ecocide-law-2/

[2] Open letter from Brazilian activists to President Jair Bolsonaro: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/INTERNATIONAL-OPEN-LETTER-1.pdf

[3] Open letter from the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) to President Jair Bolsonaro: https://extinctionrebellion.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Open-letter-from-APIB-1.pdf

[4] Amazon tipping point: Last chance for action:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338097410_Amazon_tipping_point_Last_chance_for_action
[5] Regime shifts occur disproportionately faster in larger ecosystems:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15029-x
[6] Companies contributing to and financing the destruction of the Amazon:

Where there's cattle ranching and soybean farming, there's fire, study finds: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/where-theres-cattle-ranching-and-soybean-farming-theres-fire-study-finds/

Meat giants selling to UK linked to Brazil farms in deforested Amazon reserve: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/05/meat-giants-selling-to-uk-linked-to-brazil-farms-in-deforested-amazon-reserve

Soy traders going 'deforestation-free' still fuelling destruction of Brazil's Cerrado: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/12/04/brazil-cerrado-soy-bunge-cargill/

BlackRock's $400m stake in Amazon meatpackers defies sustainability cred: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/blackrocks-400m-stake-in-amazon-meatpackers-defies-sustainability-cred/

BlackRock, other asset managers enabling deforestation, says Friends of the Earth:

Banks and pension funds among investors bankrolling meat and dairy: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/09/banks-and-pension-funds-among-investors-bankrolling-meat-and-dairy

We are letting banks off the hook for financing environmental destruction - that must change: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/environmental-damage-deforestation-banks-hsbc-barclays-santander-a9167916.html

We are letting banks off the hook for financing environmental destruction - that must change: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/environmental-damage-deforestation-banks-hsbc-barclays-santander-a9167916.html

[7] Amazon heroes who don't give up: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/guardians-of-the-forest-heroes-who-dont-give-up/

[8] Deforestation and land-grabs bring Covid-19 threats to Amazon and Gran Chaco: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/09/17/deforestation-covid-coronavirus-amazon-gran-chaco-indigenous/

[9] UK Supermarkets and fast food outlets stocking products associated with the destruction of the Amazon:

Tesco urged to ditch meat company over alleged links to Amazon deforestation: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/05/tesco-urged-to-ditch-meat-company-over-alleged-links-to-amazon-deforestation

Number of fires in the Amazon reached a 13-year high in June - and scientists fear they will engulf vast areas of rainforest in the coming months: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8482701/Number-fires-Amazon-reached-13-year-high-June.html

Major UK supermarkets 'buy corned beef from meat firm linked to illegal razing of Amazon rainforests': https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/asda-lidl-waitrose-amazon-rainforest-destruction-beef-brazil-environment-a8918981.html

Companies from Amazon to Spar 'complicit in tropical forest destruction caused by everyday products': https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-palm-oil-soya-versace-spar-blackrock-food-fashion-a9330316.html

55,000 people urge Costco to stop wholesale forest destruction: https://www.stand.earth/latest/markets-vs-climate/charmin-toilet-paper/55000-people-urge-costco-stop-wholesale-forest

UK supermarkets are selling beef from firm linked to illegal destruction of Amazon rainforest: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-supermarkets-amazon-wildfires-jbs-meat-illegal-deforestation-morrisons-waitrose-sainsburys-a9106966.html

Amazon deforestation linked to McDonald's and British retail giants: https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/amazon-deforestation-linked-to-mcdonalds-and-british-retail-giants/

7 reasons why meat is bad for the environment: https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-meat-is-bad-for-the-environment/

Report: Half of world's largest businesses haven't pledged to end supply chain deforestation: https://www.edie.net/news/7/Report-Half-of-world-s-largest-businesses-haven-t-pledged-to-end-supply-chain-deforestation/
ABOUT EXTINCTION REBELLION
Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn't taken, we're heading towards 4˚C warming, and the societal collapse and mass loss of life that that implies. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen's duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion's key demands are:

1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens' Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

What Emergency? | Extinction Rebellion in Numbers | This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook

Get involved

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Amazon Rebellion stage theatrical protest outside Brazilian Embassy to say 'Enough ecocide! Enough genocide!' - Extinction Rebellion UK

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This Saturday October 10 Amazon Rebellion - with support from Extinction Rebellion groups around the world and Animal Rebellion - will gather outside the Brazilian Embassy in London from 2-5pm to say 'Enough ecocide! Enough Genocide!' [1]

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An act of civil disobedience | Mennonite Church USA

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Tori Jones Long reflects on why she participated in an act of civil disobedience that led to her arrest during the Jan 16 Mennonite Action demonstration for a ceasefire. Tori Jones Long (she/her) is a local organizer for Mennonite Action in Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania and is an active member of Salford Mennonite Church, Harleysville, Pa. Tori navigates life with her husband, Zach, and spends her time spoiling her two dogs, Frank and Eddie, and enjoying small-town life. On Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, I was arrested with 134 other Mennonites by Capitol Hill Police for demonstrating inside the Canon House Office Building in Washington D.C. The group that was arrested inside the Canon House Building was supported by a group of 200 Mennonites and allies demonstrating outside. Many more were with us in spirit and virtually. Mennonite Action [an independent grassroots organization] organized our peaceful demonstrations, and hundreds of us travelled to Washington from across the United States. We were there calling for our elected officials to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a release of all hostages and an end to the occupation of Palestine. We made our voices heard in a quintessentially Mennonite way – through […]

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In its less than 20 years of existence, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has amassed an extensive and shocking record of human rights violations. The current administration's anti-immigrant sentiment has radicalized the agency, emboldening it to employ increased violence, excessive force, and blatantly illegal methods of arrest with impunity. While families continue to be separated at our border, inadequate government efforts to reunite families in the wake of "zero tolerance" policy means it could take years for authorities to even identify thousands of children taken from their parents, raising concerns they could remain separated indefinitely. Meanwhile, the network of ICE-managed private detention facilities is rapidly expanding. It is behind these prison walls that ICE agents have committed their most egregious and unregulated acts of violence, including fatal medical neglect, rape, and sexual abuse of minors.

In response to these abuses, activists have been calling for the agency's abolition. The Abolish ICE movement is rapidly gaining traction, despite frequently facing derision in the mainstream press. Constant news headlines revealing ICE's systematic violence make it increasingly difficult to claim such acts are isolated incidences within an otherwise functioning and necessary system. While few politicians deny that ICE's role and conduct in immigration enforcement must be subject to oversight, concrete plans of action seldom follow their calls for "comprehensive reforms."

Affected communities know that incremental reforms would offer little relief in the face of the ubiquitous state-sanctioned violence they suffer at the hands of ICE. In contrast to mainstream reform proposals, the Abolish ICE movement understands and confronts the enforcement agency using a conceptual framework that analyzes the root causes of injustice in the immigration system. Drawing upon a long tradition of abolitionist thought and practice, Abolish ICE challenges the status quo by asking us to acknowledge patterns of violence, to consider the ways in which violence is sewn into ICE's very foundation, and to radically reimagine an approach to migration that prioritizes humanity over profit and false pretenses of national security. Abolitionist thinkers have always proposed radical solutions to radical problems, and in doing so have paved the way for all the most revolutionary progress in our nation's history. Because of this history, we must understand and frame the Abolish ICE movement within the larger ideological context of abolitionism, rather than as a fringe, single-issue movement.
Understanding Abolitionism
The tenets of abolitionism have been discounted and misconstrued throughout American history. Time and again abolitionism has been discounted as a singular demand for a perceived "impossible" reality, instead of recognized for its complex and multidimensional framework in which community-based solutions, dynamic interdisciplinary critical thought, and the steadfast commitment to sustainable change are interwoven and practically applied. Abolitionism has been dismissed as naive ever since U.S. history's most famous abolition movement-to abolish slavery. Despite the wealth of historical evidence proving abolitionist thought and action as the necessary driving forces behind the United States' most integral rights-based revolutions, from the Civil Rights Movement to the advancement of Women's Rights, many are quick to dismiss abolitionist activism, including Abolish ICE and contemporary prison abolitionist movements

Black women activists and thinkers, such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, and Audre Lorde have been stalwart leaders of prison abolition work and the development of a comprehensive abolitionist pedagogy that is central to the movement. The abolitionist principle of sustainability is demonstrated by the commitment to "non-reformist reforms," which Dan Berger, Miriame Kaba, and David Stein define in their co-authored piece, " What Abolitionists Do," as "measures that reduce the power of an oppressive system while illuminating the system's inability to solve the crises it creates." Prison abolitionist organizations such as Incite!, Survived and Punished, and Critical Resistance have spent decades fighting to secure sustainable changes in prison conditions, to halt new prison construction, to free individuals, and to end solitary confinement and cash bail. Movements have and continue to carry out such actions while investing in community-based solutions that address the cycles of poverty and structural violence that contribute to mass incarceration. Abolitionist organizations undertake these actions in mindful opposition to "reformist reforms," which temporarily assuage public outcry, but ultimately reinforce preexisting dynamics of oppression that generate violence, fundamentally strengthening the normative acceptance of an inherently fascist structure.

Abolish ICE activists draw from these analyses and practices to focus their organizing on fighting for enduring solutions. ICE abolitionist organizations such as Otay Mesa Detention Resistance in San Diego, California actively work to support migrants before and after ICE detention. This means everything from reuniting families through coordinating transportation and housing to promoting community-based support and rights education in order to avoid future ICE exploitation and abuse. Jennicet Gutierrez, a community organizer with La Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, has been a powerful voice in the Abolish ICE movement, calling attention to the severely heightened vulnerability and persecution trans asylum seekers face. She has responded to statements that reduce the movement to its hashtag by making it clear that "abolishing ICE is absolutely about shutting down detention centers, ending deportations, and defunding and dismantling the agency...we won't stand by anymore while our people are put in cages and punished because of their gender identity or sexual orientation."

ICE abolitionists call attention to how even seemingly small-scale tactics of oppression are inseparable from the more shocking violations dominating headlines. Whether it's family separation or more everyday forms of oppression such as unreliable release practices, all are all rooted in ICE's foundational disregard for the humanity of forced-migrants, and the immigrant detention system's profit-driven structure. No agency that exists to criminalize migration can be made morally defensible by mere reform, Abolish ICE activists assert, and ICE's track record of systematic violence underlines the need for more radical change.
Building the Immigration Industrial Complex
Prison abolition movements and the movement to Abolish ICE are intimately linked not only through activist ideology, but also through their communities' shared history. Mass incarceration and the broken immigration system are both connected to U.S. policies of drug criminalization and border enforcement beginning with the War on Drugs in the 1980s and ramped up with the subsequent War on Terror. The term "immigration industrial complex," which sociologist Tanya Golash-Boza coined in 2009, draws parallels between mass deportation and mass incarceration, specifically the confluence in both of private and powerful interests, fear mongering, and "other-ization" of targeted communities.

The leading corporations running the private immigrant detention system, CoreCivic and GEO group, are the same corporations that have profited for decades off the mass incarceration of Black and Brown communities. As these corporations rake in exorbitant profits from the detention of undocumented migrants with massive ICE contracts, detention itself serves as a central mechanism of the ICE's state-sanctioned repression and abuse. In FY 2018, CoreCivic's contracts alone amounted to $7.4 billion. This profit motive is a central component of activists' calls for ICE's abolition. Human rights groups repeatedly have exposed inhumane conditions in ICE detention, as well as brutal treatment, sexual abuse, and extreme medical neglect. Rates of miscarriage in ICE detention have doubled in recent years, and 164 migrants died in ICE custody between 2003 and 2017, according to ICE data. Leading causes of death in the report include asphyxia, heart failure, and suicide. Twenty-two migrants have died in ICE custody since the body published its report on detainee deaths in 2017.

Yet these horrific statistics alone cannot capture the true scope of violence in ICE detention, where intentionally secretive ICE operations compound the problems of weak regulation in the private prison system, as David Hernández writes in the most recent issue of the NACLA Report. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General issued a report in 2019 condemning human rights abuses at the Adelanto migrant detention center in San Bernardino, California. The abuses reported on include "nooses in detainee cells, improper and overly restrictive segregation, [and] untimely and inadequate detainee medical care." Despite these reports, relevant authorities do not question the privatization of the industry and the abuse it perpetuates. Moreover, the company CoreCivic hired to complete inspections, the Nakamoto Group, consistently fails to hold CoreCivic remotely accountable, Hernández notes. According to a note on the Inspector General's report, Nakamoto's "inspections were particularly problematic," NBC reported, because "ICE employees and managers told the investigators that Nakamoto inspectors 'breeze by the standards' and do not 'have enough time to see if the [facility] is actually implementing the policies.'"
ICE Abolition in Practice
A main stumbling block to winning mainstream support for abolitionism is the perceived infeasibility of the project. In the case of ICE, strategic framing of the agency as a well-established, longstanding, and therefore indispensable fixture of the government has perpetuated this perception that there is no alternative to ICE. However, ICE is, in fact, a relatively recent creation.

ICE was established in 2003 as part of the post-9/11 government overhaul that reallocated immigration-related responsibilities previously held by the Immigration and Naturalization Services, (INS), which fell under the Department of Justice, to three of the newly-constructed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sub-agencies: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), ICE, and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). This reconstruction did not simply distribute established INS responsibilities to the new agencies, but also marked a critical shift that took the act of unauthorized immigration from being considered a civil offense to that of criminal status. This critical shift reflected the pervasive culture of fear and nationalism that followed the 9/11 attacks, and ultimately paved the way for the normative acceptance of criminalized migration, and thus, the Immigration Industrial Complex as it exists today. Though the abolition of ICE seems radical to many, the agency itself was created in the wake of extraordinary circumstances. The creation of DHS was an unprecedented government reconstruction, one that masked the overhaul of established human rights norms regarding the civil treatment of migration under a veil of collective panic.

Four main operational directorates make up ICE: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), and Management and Administration (MA). OPLA constitutes the Department of Homeland Security's legal representation, and MA is largely administrative. OPLA and MA represent a small portion of the agency, existing in large part to support enforcement, including detention, and deportation. ERO is the largest and most heavily funded sub-agency of ICE, representing $4.8 billion dollars in FY 2018. HSI is the second largest sub-agency, though it receives less than half of what ERO received in FY2018. Opponents to ICE abolition often point to the importance of HSI, which handles high-profile transnational crime, citing it as the agency's most necessary arm and thus primary justification for ICE's existence in its entirety. However, 19 HSI investigators themselves have requested for their directorate to be removed from ICE entirely, because of what they claim to be a lack of "a singular synergistic mission," as they stated in a letter sent to former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen in June 2018. In the letter, the participating investigators share their concerns about the ways in which "each agency [is] lacking the ability to find a direction and seemingly competing for budget, resources, and an identity."

They cite an inability to effectively investigate transnational crime because of the frequent redistribution of budget between the administrative and investigatory arms of ICE, most notably $35 million in FY2016. The investigators claim that the sub-agencies' disparate functions "cause confusion among the public, the press, other law enforcement agencies," that "HSI's investigative independence is unnecessarily impacted by the political nature of ERO's civil immigration enforcement." Furthermore, "Many jurisdictions continue to refuse to work with HSI because of a perceived linkage to the politics of civil immigration."

Clearly, there is an urgent internal disagreement about the confluence of enforcement and investigations under the singular umbrella of ICE. But it is important to underscore that Abolish ICE activists are not proposing a shuffling of responsibilities from ICE to other DHS agencies. ERO is the primary object of abolitionist demands, and the abolition of ICE necessarily means an end to immigrant detention, and an end mass deportation. Though HSI would likely become an independent agency under DHS, its functions and mission are separate in nature from ERO, which undeniably has become the central mission under ICE today.

The trauma asylum-seekers endure today in the United States continues long after release from detention where family separation, sexual abuse, and medical neglect are rampant. Because of the vulnerability associated with undocumented status, individuals who speak out against the state-sanctioned abuse they have been subject to are not only re-traumatized, but could also face retribution through rejected asylum petitions and deportation. Yet headlines portraying the brutality of ICE continue to emerge from the scarce information made publicly available. But the principles of abolitionism could pave a new pathway towards collective understanding, and one day, collective healing. In daring to comprehend an oppressive structure both contextually and holistically, opportunities to build commensurable solutions to the immensity of the problem then too arise.

Oppression must be eradicated from the root if there is any hope to garner permanent change. As we move forward as a society that endeavors to prioritize human life over corporate profit, we must tend the abolitionist principles of community solidarity and sustainability of change. The abolition of ICE will not solve all the problems of the broken immigration system, but it is the first step of a completely possible, meaningful, and non-reformist reform.
Jennie Rose Nelson is an immigration activist from San Diego, California, where she is affiliated with the migrant rights organizations Otay Mesa Detention Resistance and Border Angels. She is currently a student with Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights.

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Abolish ICE! Fighting for Humanity over Profit in Immigration Policy

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In its less than 20 years of existence, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has amassed an extensive and shocking record of human rights violations. The current administration's anti-immigrant sentiment has radicalized the agency, emboldening it to employ increased violence, excessive force, and blatantly illegal methods of arrest with impunity.

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#Translation Tuesday Download a Pashto (پښتو) translation of the ICNC resource 'Spectrum of Allies'

What's New

ICNC Announces Executive and Organizational Transition
On March 29, 2021, ICNC shared two announcements. 1. Executive transition:
Hardy Merriman announces that he will be stepping down from his position as ICNC President & CEO, effective June 30, 2021. Thereafter he will become a senior advisor to ICNC and remain a member of ICNC's Board. Board Chair Peter Ackerman will assume the role of President & CEO effective July 1, 2021.

Hardy Merriman stated: "I have always felt fortunate to be part of an organization that does such meaningful and impactful work. The people, the programs, and ICNC's mission deeply inspire me. ICNC has significantly advanced the study, practice, and support of civil resistance globally. Over many years, these activities have increased prospects for movements to win human rights and democracy...."

Read more.
2. Organizational transition:
For nearly 20 years, ICNC's programs have played a pivotal role in developing civil resistance study and practice worldwide. The last decade has seen significant growth in scholars doing cutting-edge research and academic programs dedicated to this subject. Meanwhile, other areas of urgent and unfulfilled demand have emerged that ICNC is uniquely qualified to address now....

Read more.

Webinar and Special Report Launch:

'From the Hills to the Streets to the Table: Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding in Nepal'

Presented by: Ches Thurber, Subindra Bogati, and Véronique Dudouet
Tuesday, April 27
12:00pm to 1:00pm (US Eastern Time)

ICNC is pleased to host Ches Thurber and Subrinda Bogati, as they discuss the findings of their special report on peacebuilding and civil resistance strategies in Nepal. In their case study, they use Veronique Dudouet's conceptual framework from her ICNC special report, Powering to Peace: Integrated Civil Resistance and Peacebuilding Strategies, to highlight the interplay between civil resistance and peacebuilding strategies.

They will describe how a transition from civil war to civil resistance was made possible and how it led to a successful conflict settlement. However, they will also argue that flaws in the conflict settlement and post-conflict phases have produced a turbulent post-settlement process, one that falls short of the goals of reconciliation, transitional justice, and sustainable peace.

Learn More and Register

SCHOLAR-ACTIVIST UNVEILS SCORES OF NEW METHODS OF CIVIL RESISTANCE

Expanding on sociologist Gene Sharp's famous 198 methods of nonviolent action, veteran activist and organizer Michael Beer identifies scores of additional tactics in his new ICNC monograph, Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century. Beer also proposes helpful new categories of nonviolent action. This publications is available for free download.

On a webinar on March 31, Beer was joined by ICNC Founding Director Dr. Peter Ackerman and veteran civil resistance scholar Shaazka Beyerle to discuss his findings.

Learn More

NEW ICNC MONOGRAPH ON EXTERNAL SUPPORT FOR NONVIOLENT CAMPAIGNS

ICNC is proud to present the newest addition to its popular Monograph Series, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? by Drs. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, authors of the groundbreaking civil resistance classic, Why Civil Resistance Works.

Published by ICNC Press, this new report employs original, qualitative, and quantitative data to examine the ways that external assistance impacted the characteristics and success rates of post-2000 revolutionary nonviolent uprisings.

Homing in on eight nonviolent campaigns, Chenoweth and Stephan analyze the effects that training, funding, and other support from outside governmental and non-governmental actors had on the efforts to resist powerholders' abuse, corruption and injustice.
Download the full monograph for free here. Watch the March 3 webinar with the renowned authors here.
Read more

For Activists & Organizers

ICNC provides practical, relevant information and educational opportunities about civil resistance to activists and organizers around the world.

Our view is that nonviolent struggle is a social science that can be studied and understood. Practitioners can increase their chances of success by learning lessons from each other as well as from cutting edge academic scholarship on this topic.

Learn More

New from ICNC Press

Second edition of The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns
by Ivan Marovic

The Path of Most Resistance: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Nonviolent Campaigns is a practical guide for activists and organizers of all levels, who wish to grow their resistance activities into a more strategic, fixed-term campaign. It guides readers through the campaign planning process, breaking it down into several steps and providing tools and exercises for each step.

The Second Edition released in March 2021 includes chapters on tactics and running a tactical planning workshop, and a Foreword by Hardy Merriman.

Free Download:
* Second edition: English
* First edition: Catalan | French | Polish | Portuguese (Brazilian) | Spanish | Urdu

Learn More

Visit our full resource library to find hundreds of resources on civil resistance in English and over 70 languages.

Or, if you are interested in civil resistance and don't know where to start, we've made a list of general introductory resources-many of them short articles-to introduce you to the field. See our list of ten key resources for activists and organizers.

Visit the Resource Library

ICNC Translations Program

Translating civil resistance literature into diverse languages is one of the most powerful ways to spread knowledge and increase the effectiveness of nonviolent movements struggling for rights, freedom, and justice. Learn more about our translations program or read our glossary of key terms.

We also currently host resources on civil resistance in over 70 languages and dialects on our website.

Find Translated Resources

For Scholars & Students

The discipline of civil resistance has developed enormously in recent years, driven by new quantitative and qualitative scholarly research, as well as by numerous nonviolent movements around the world.

ICNC runs a number of grant-supported academic and educational programs to meet the growing demand for cutting edge research, applied knowledge and practical skills in this field. Look at our research, writing, teaching and other educational offerings and review current calls for proposals or applications.

Learn More

Academic Online Curriculum

ICNC's Academic Online Curriculum on Civil Resistance (AOC) is an online resource to advance curriculum development, teaching, and research on civil resistance. It offers an extensive and regularly updated set of resources in this field, organized into clearly structured topics and case studies, and drawn in part from content that we and various academic collaborators developed for the ICNC university seminars we've led since 2009.
Anyone can register to use the AOC at any time and it is free to use.
Topics on the AOC include:

- Civil Resistance: Nature, Ideas and History
- Strategic Considerations in Civil Resistance Struggles
- Types of Civil Resistance Struggles

And more!

Register Now!

Calls from ICNC Academic Initiatives

Throughout the year, ICNC is offering a number of academic opportunities, resources, and support that it makes available to scholars and students. The field of civil resistance has grown immensely and these academic programs aim to respond to the growing demand for knowledge and skills and contribute to expanding the quality of education, research, and curriculum related to civil resistance. This page includes the current and past calls for the ICNC's educational and research programs, such as learning opportunities, curriculum support, and research grants.

One of our calls, the Rapid Field Research and Data Collection Program, accepts applications on a rolling basis and interested applicants can apply for the program throughout the year.

Learn More

New from ICNC Press:

Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance
by Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman
Available in: English, Arabic, and Spanish

Events of the last decade demand new approaches to atrocity prevention that are adaptable, innovative and independent of a state-centered doctrine. With the aim of reducing risk factors such as civil war, we argue for a new normative framework called The Right to Assist (RtoA)....

See ICNC Press Publications

For the Policy Community

Civil resistance movements have a proven role in advancing human rights, democratic governance, and curtailing corruption. They are a critical factor in addressing root causes of human suffering and reducing deadly violence in the world.

It is incumbent for members of the policy community who care about these issues to understand how movements work; their historic record of making change; and when, how, and under what circumstances external actors can take actions that are helpful to movements.

Learn More

NEW ICNC MONOGRAPH ON EXTERNAL SUPPORT FOR NONVIOLENT CAMPAIGNS

ICNC is proud to present the newest addition to its popular Monograph Series, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? by Drs. Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, authors of the groundbreaking civil resistance classic, Why Civil Resistance Works.

Published by ICNC Press, this new report employs original, qualitative, and quantitative data to examine the ways that external assistance impacted the characteristics and success rates of post-2000 revolutionary nonviolent uprisings.
Download the full monograph for free here. Watch the March 3 webinar with the renowned authors here.
Read More

New From ICNC Press:

Preventing Mass Atrocities: From a Responsbility to Protect (RtoP) to a Right to Assist (RtoA) Campaigns of Civil Resistance
by Peter Ackerman and Hardy Merriman
Available in: English, Arabic, and Spanish

Events of the last decade demand new approaches to atrocity prevention that are adaptable, innovative and independent of a state-centered doctrine. With the aim of reducing risk factors such as civil war, we argue for a new normative framework called The Right to Assist (RtoA)....

Learn More

A Movement-centered Support Model: Consideration for Human Rights Funders and Organizations

ICNC President Hardy Merriman writes: "What makes civil resistance movements effective? If funders and human rights organizations can identify key factors that answer this question, then their efforts can be oriented towards trying to support the development and growth of those factors. [...]"

Learn More

Minds of the Movement Blog

Minds of the Movement is a blog for those interested in the ideas and experiences of people on the front line of civil resistance, and those who seek to understand the art and science of nonviolent struggle.

Learn More

NEW POST

Ches Thurber and Subindra Bogati write: "Between 1996 and 2006, Nepal experienced a civil war that resulted in the deaths of over 17,000 people. The beginning of the conflict caught by surprise political leaders and international observers alike. The country had just transitioned to a parliamentary system-brought about by the largely nonviolent Jana Andolan or "People's Movement" of 1990-and many believed Nepal was on a stable and peaceful path toward democracy. Just as remarkable, however, was how the conflict ended: with the Maoist guerrillas putting down their weapons and joining other political parties in a successful civil resistance campaign. [...]

[...]"

Read more!

Tom Hastings writes: "Those of us who study and practice civil resistance need to know that the Academy for Autocrats is also busy learning-in many cases, from us. We share our knowledge in the spirit of offering tools for nonviolent liberation to all, everywhere. There are strengths in our transparency and open approach, but autocrats also try to use this to their advantage, seeking to think several moves ahead of activists. [...]"

Read more!

Jonathan Pinckney writes: "We are in one of the largest waves of nonviolent resistance in history. Even the COVID-19 pandemic could not stop massive uprisings in Thailand, Belarus, Myanmar, and elsewhere as ordinary citizens use nonviolent tactics to challenge entrenched authoritarians and demand reform. Yet, even as more and more people have hit the streets to push for change, the Varieties of Democracy project reports that global democracy has never been weaker and the long trend of growing autocracy has only accelerated. What can be done to turn this around? [...]"

Read more!

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Translation Tuesday Download a Pashto (پښتو) translation of the ICNC resource 'Spectrum of Allies' On March 29, 2021, ICNC shared two announcements. 1. Executive transition: Hardy Merriman announces that he will be stepping down from his position as ICNC President & CEO, effective June 30, 2021.

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Greta Thunberg fined for disobeying police at Swedish protest

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Climate Activist, Greta Thunberg has been fined for disobeying police orders to move after blocking an entrance to Swedish parliament in March during a climate protest.

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Nelson Mandela Foundation

Home

Biography of Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in the village of Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape, on 18 July 1918. His mother was Nonqaphi Nosekeni and his father was Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela, principal counsellor to the Acting King of the Thembu people, Jongintaba Dalindyebo. In 1930, when he was 12 years old, his father died and the young Rolihlahla became a ward of Jongintaba at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni ¹.

Hearing the elders' stories of his ancestors' valour during the wars of resistance, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.

He attended primary school in Qunu where his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave him the name Nelson, in accordance with the custom of giving all schoolchildren "Christian" names.

He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where he matriculated.

Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare but did not complete the degree there as he was expelled for joining in a student protest.

On his return to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni the King was furious and said if he didn't return to Fort Hare he would arrange wives for him and his cousin Justice. They ran away to Johannesburg instead, arriving there in 1941. There he worked as a mine security officer and after meeting Walter Sisulu, an estate agent, he was introduced to Lazer Sidelsky. He then did his articles through a firm of attorneys - Witkin, Eidelman and Sidelsky.

He completed his BA through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation in 1943.

Meanwhile, he began studying for an LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand. By his own admission he was a poor student and left the university in 1952 without graduating. He only started studying again through the University of London after his imprisonment in 1962 but also did not complete that degree.

In 1989, while in the last months of his imprisonment, he obtained an LLB through the University of South Africa. He graduated in absentia at a ceremony in Cape Town.

Entering politics

Mandela, while increasingly politically involved from 1942, only joined the African National Congress in 1944 when he helped to form the ANC Youth League (ANCYL).

In 1944 he married Walter Sisulu's cousin, Evelyn Mase, a nurse. They had two sons, Madiba Thembekile "Thembi" and Makgatho, and two daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy. He and his wife divorced in 1958.

Mandela rose through the ranks of the ANCYL and through its efforts, the ANC adopted a more radical mass-based policy, the Programme of Action, in 1949.

In 1952 he was chosen as the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign with Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign and sentenced to nine months of hard labour, suspended for two years.

A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Mandela to practise law, and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa's first black-owned law firm in the 1950s, Mandela & Tambo. ²

At the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June 1955.

The Treason Trial

Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December 1956, which led to the 1956 Treason Trial. Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were acquitted on 29 March 1961.

On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws. This led to the country's first state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) on 8 April. Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency.

During the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June 1958. They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in 1996.

Days before the end of the Treason Trial, Mandela travelled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which resolved that he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting a national convention on a non-racial constitution, and to warn that should he not agree there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a republic. After he and his colleagues were acquitted in the Treason Trial, Mandela went underground and began planning a national strike for 29, 30 and 31 March.

In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early. In June 1961 he was asked to lead the armed struggle and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), which launched on 16 December 1961 with a series of explosions.

On 11 January 1962, using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Mandela secretly left South Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed struggle. He received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia and returned to South Africa in July 1962. He was arrested in a police roadblock outside Howick on 5 August while returning from KwaZulu-Natal, where he had briefed ANC President Chief Albert Luthuli about his trip.

He was charged with leaving the country without a permit and inciting workers to strike. He was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment, which he began serving at the Pretoria Local Prison. On 27 May 1963 he was transferred to Robben Island and returned to Pretoria on 12 June. Within a month police raided Liliesleaf, a secret hideout in Rivonia, Johannesburg, used by ANC and Communist Party activists, and several of his comrades were arrested.

On 9 October 1963 Mandela joined 10 others on trial for sabotage in what became known as the Rivonia Trial. While facing the death penalty his words to the court at the end of his famous "Speech from the Dock" on 20 April 1964 became immortalised:

" 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. "
Speech from the Dock quote by Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964

On 11 June 1964 Mandela and seven other accused, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni, were convicted and the next day were sentenced to life imprisonment. Goldberg was sent to Pretoria Prison because he was white, while the others went to Robben Island.

Mandela's mother died in 1968 and his eldest son, Thembi, in 1969. He was not allowed to attend their funerals.

On 31 March 1982 Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in October. When he returned to the prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery, Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee visited him in hospital. Later Mandela initiated talks about an ultimate meeting between the apartheid government and the ANC.

Release from prison

On 12 August 1988 he was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After more than three months in two hospitals he was transferred on 7 December 1988 to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his last 14 months of imprisonment. He was released from its gates on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine days after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and nearly four months after the release of his remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment he had rejected at least three conditional offers of release.

Mandela immersed himself in official talks to end white minority rule and in 1991 was elected ANC President to replace his ailing friend, Oliver Tambo. In 1993 he and President FW de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize and on 27 April 1994 he voted for the first time in his life.

President

On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated as South Africa's first democratically elected President. On his 80 th birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel, his third wife.

True to his promise, Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President. He continued to work with the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund he set up in 1995 and established the Nelson Mandela Foundation and The Mandela Rhodes Foundation.

In April 2007 his grandson, Mandla Mandela, was installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council at a ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place.

Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. His life is an inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived; and to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.

He died at his home in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013.

1. Nelson Mandela's father died in 1930 when Mandela was 12 and his mother died in 1968 when he was in prison. While the autobiography Long Walk to Freedom says his father died when he was nine, historical evidence shows it must have been later, most likely 1930. In fact, the original Long Walk to Freedom manuscript (written on Robben Island) states the year as 1930, when he was 12. 2. have established that there were at least 2 other black owned law firms before Mandela and Tambo.

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Biography of Nelson Mandela - Nelson Mandela Foundation

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We are a non-profit organisation focused on dialogue and advocacy, and memory and legacy work, founded by Nelson Mandela in 1999.