Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born on this day in 1918, was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary communist who served as President the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997 and of South Africa itself from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in an election in which South Africans of all races could participate.
While working as a clerk for a law firm as a young man, Mandela befriended two communists - Gaur Radebe, a Hlubi member of the ANC and Communist Party, and Nat Bregman, a Jewish communist who became his first white friend. Mandela attended Communist Party meetings and, while impressed that people of all races were able to meet as equals, he did not join the party because its atheism conflicted with his own Christianity, and because he saw the South African struggle as being based in race rather than class.
Mandela joined the ANC a few years later, quickly rising through its ranks. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government.
On August 5th, 1962, Mandela was captured by South African police, informed by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of his location. In the subsequent legal proceedings, known as the “Rivonia Trial”, he was sentenced to life in prison.
Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990 and began negotiating a peaceable end to apartheid with him. In 1994, he became the first legitimately elected President of South Africa.
Mandela saw national reconciliation as the primary task of his presidency, and hoped to avoid the damage other post-colonial African economies faced by the departure of white elites.
Mandela worked to reassure South Africa’s white population that they were protected and represented in the so-called “the Rainbow Nation” and embraced liberal (rather than communist) reforms, drawing criticism from more his more militant supporters.
– President Nelson Mandela Inauguration Speech May 10, 1994 :demsoc-rose:
– Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation | Official Full Documentary :mandela:
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