Mandela Essay, Research Paper

Mandela was born July 19, 1918, in Umtata. He was imprisoned from 1964 until 1990; he is a symbol of black South Africans against segregation and the white minority rule in South Africa. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became the co-founder of the ANC’s Youth League. Mandela became a big time activist for blacks, when sixty- nine blacks were killed in a demonstration in 1961. That same year he became the head of a militant underground protest movement. In 1962, he was arrested. In 1964, he was sentenced for life for sabotage, treason and conspiring to overthrow the government. He was released from prison unconditionally on February 11, 1990, by the president of South Africa, F.W De Klerk, due to the pressure from the anti-apartheid.

The son of, and natural successor to, a Tembu tribal chieftain, Mandela attended school at the Methodist Mission Center in Healdtown and University College at Fort Hare. In 1940, however, he was expelled from college for organizing a student strike. He continued his law studies by correspondence and obtained his degree from the University of South Africa in 1942. Shortly thereafter he joined the ANC, South Africa’s longest-standing black liberation group, rising to a position of leadership by the early 1950s.

For nearly two decades, Mandela worked to unite various resistance factions and to organize antigovernment protests. In 1952, Mandela and a colleague also established the first black law partnership in South Africa. Confined by the police on several occasions, Mandela in December 1956 went on trial, along with 156 others, on charges of treason. The case lasted nearly six years, and in 1961 all the defendants were acquitted. Mandela was arrested again in August 1962 and sentenced to five years in jail for inciting a strike and traveling without proper documents. Additional charges resulted in a life sentence in June 1964.

Mandela was not one just to whine and do nothing. He got his law degree, so he could have voice. He established the first black law partnership in South Africa and after his release, he became president of a shared power, in South Africa.

Mandela with his title today as president he uses his power to create peace. One of the things he uses his power to stop clashes between ethic groups and races. Mandela especially finds the numbers of deaths in clashes asonishing.

Mandela is a democratic activist; this was tested, during Bush’s reign as president, when he tried to convert South Africa to a Democratic Republic. He and F.W. Klerk won Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating South Africa’s peaceful transition to multiracial democracy. Around ‘96 he made Africa a true democracy.

After the ANC victory in the April 1994 elections, Mandela worked to ease the tensions, court foreign investment, and provide services to the black victims of apartheid. Mandela still works on easing problems today.

Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela is truly a peacemaker, though, he was not always peaceful in his protest actions. He started out right when, he got his degree that made it possible for him to have a voice. But while doing so, he also joined the people in violent strikes. He went to jail and when he got out, he did come back but protested peacefully this time. He became president, with shared powers. To keep peace, he shared the power of president with F.W De Klerk. This kept peace so, that no white could argue that a “black man” is in office and no black man could argue that a “white man” is in office. In Mandelas’ time in office, with the shared powers, he had resolved many problems. In 1994 he won the election, for the title of president. Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela is truly a peacemaker in my eyes, I hope you view it the same way too.