Mandela, the Revolutionary

Fighting oppression and racism in South Africa took years of hard work on the part of many revolutionaries, including Nelson Mandela. In September of 1944 Mandela and his fellow activists, William Nkomo, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and Ashby Mda founded the Youth League of African National Congress (ANCYL). They wanted to involve not just educated South Africans, but also the millions of working people living in both cities and rural areas. Whereas the ANC had petitioned the government for decades, the ANCYL wanted to add protests, boycotts, and strikes, as well as petitions to end apartheid.

In 1947, Mandela was elected secretary of the ANCYL and with other Youth League leaders traveled around South Africa meeting with other black leaders to organize more campaigns to bring equality to South Africa. In 1949, the ANC approved an action plan written by Mandela and his ANCYL colleagues. According to the plan, boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and noncooperation — all methods of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance movement — would be used as the nonviolent "weapons" of the ANC.

Support grew for the Youth League's bold plan. As a result, Mandela was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee. He helped write policy statements advocating full citizenship and equal representation, redistribution of land, free and compulsory education for all children, mass education for adults, and trade union rights. When these documents were published, the world learned more about the brutality of apartheid policy in South Africa. Unfortunately, these documents caused more trouble for Mandela and his fellow activists, as the South African government did not want the world knowing that racism and oppression was an official policy of this so-called modern nation.

Mandela continued to play greater roles in the movement for liberation in South Africa. In 1952, he was elected national volunteer-in-chief of the Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws. The Defiance Campaign advocated mass disobedience, encouraging people to do such things as refusing to carry their government-issued identity passes, using "whites only" public areas, and keeping their children home rather than sending them to substandard blacks-only schools. "Make every home, every shack, or rickety structure a center of learning," Mandela said.

Mandela committed his own acts of mass disobedience as well. On June 26, 1952, Mandela and a group of 50 black South African volunteers broke the government-imposed 11 P.M. curfew by stepping into the street. They were quickly arrested and jailed. The police tried to stop the campaign by arresting ANC leaders. They raided Mandela's home, looking for information about ANC members and their plans.

During the first year of the Defiance Campaign, more than 8,500 people were arrested for deliberately breaking apartheid laws. The government banned Mandela and 51 other anti-apartheid activists from meeting in groups, publishing articles, and speaking to reporters. Mandela said of this time, "I found myself restricted and isolated from my fellow men." Yet, Mandela and his law partner, Oliver Tambo, continued to defy the bans and kept their law offices open, defending many people who were arrested during the defiance campaign.

Three years after the Defiance Campaign began, the ANC organized a Congress of the People, which included 3,000 black, white, Indian, and Asian representatives. The delegates voted to adopt the "Freedom Charter," a document that called for a free South Africa belonging to "all who live in it, black and white." The charter supported a one-person, one-vote policy and called for fair wages and equal opportunities for employment and land ownership among all South Africans.

During the second day of the People's Congress, armed military policemen sealed all the exits, stopped the meeting, and made a list of everyone in attendance. They then arrested 156 of the delegates, including Mandela, and charged them all with treason.

To defend himself in court, Mandela took a bus every day for five years to a Pretoria courtroom, returning to Johannesburg, working on his clients' cases, and continuing his ANC responsibilities. During his trial for treason, the prosecutors tried to prove that Mandela and the ANC had plotted to overthrow the government. But, the verdict was "not guilty." Mandela was free again — for a while — but the ANC and other freedom movements were banned by the South African government.

The movement came to a crucial crossroads. Would they continue following nonviolent resistance despite the massacre of 69 unarmed protestors — many of them women and children — in Sharpeville in 1960? How could they be effective now that the ANC and other freedom movements were banned by the South African government? What other forms of protest could they use? If demonstrators could be shot in the back as they ran away as they were in Sharpeville, what defense could be used against so brutal a government? Mandela and fellow activists struggled with making a decision as to what to do next.

Meanwhile, around the country, protests continued to be violently repressed. More and more innocent people were dying for the cause. Mandela explained, "There came a point in our struggle when the brute force of the oppressor could no longer be countered through passive resistance alone." He wrote, "We have no choice but to hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people, our future, and our freedom …"

So Mandela and his colleagues turned their focus toward developing a new underground ANC movement. In an interview, he explained that he and his colleagues had thought long and hard about the situation in South Africa. He said, "…as violence in this country is inevitable, it 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."

To stay alive he hid, living apart from his family. To go out, he disguised himself — once as a farm laborer, for example — often walking right past police officers who didn't recognize him. People called him the "Black Pimpernel" because he was like the Scarlet Pimpernel, the main character in a popular English novel known for his disguises.

Mandela's fugitive days ended in August of 1962. Dressed as a chauffeur, he and fellow activist Cecil Williams, a fellow ANC member, were driving home to Johannesburg when military police forced them to pull off the road. "My life on the run was over," Mandela wrote in his autobiography. "My seventeen months of 'freedom' were about to end."

"… a free South Africa belonging to all who live in it, black and white."

PHOTO (COLOR): Though Mandela is smiling, by burning his passbook he was committing a serious act of civil disobedience against apartheid.

PHOTO (COLOR): In defiance of apartheid laws, these black South Africans in 1952 rode in the train section marked "Europeans Only." Thirty-four riders were later arrested by Cape Town police.

PHOTO (COLOR): In addition to defending himself against the charge of treason, Mandela was a tireless lawyer for many other blacks.

PHOTO (COLOR)

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By Cyndy Hall

Cyndy Hall is a southern California writer, keyboard musician, and teacher.