Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years, as a political prisoner is South Africa before becoming the country’s first black president, Mandela was a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), which opposed South Africa’s white minority government and its policy of racial separation, known as apartheid. The government outlawed the ANC in 1960. Mandela was captured and jailed in 1962. In 1964, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Instead of disappearing from view, he became a prison-bound martyr and a worldwide symbol of resistance to racism. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa, on July 18, 1918. Although born from royal parentage, he was reared in the traditional African setting among the Thembu. His childhood consisted of everyday chores such as ploughing land, herding cattle, and tending sheep. One of the things that he enjoyed most as a kid was listening to the elders tells the stories of the history of their …show more content…
The government disenfranchised, and restricted the movement and daily lives of the African people. Mandela, as well as the majority of the South African people, was affected by this event. In 1940, Mandela’s initiation into political activism had begun. He worked on his Bachelor of Arts degree at Fort Hare College in the Eastern Cape. Mandela was suspended from school, because he had participated in a boycott to protest against the college’s council power of authority. He later traveled to Johannesburg to avoid an arranged marriage, and being trained for chieftainship. When he arrived to Johannesburg, a man named Walter Sisulu encouraged Mandela to join the ANC, a multiracial, antiapartheid organization founded in 1912. Joining the ANC marked the beginning of Mandela’s mission to establish justice and equality throughout South