The Long Walk to Freedom
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On 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster Prison at seventy-one, after imprisonment that began in August 1962. Release enabled him to take part openly in a struggle sustained by many people inside and outside South Africa. Negotiation proceeded amid political violence and deep disagreement. Four years later he became the country’s first Black president, with the work of turning equal citizenship into daily life still ahead.
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.”
1918–2013
Born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo on the banks of the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape. Died in Johannesburg on December 5, 2013, at ninety-five — widely mourned in South Africa and abroad.
27
From August 5, 1962, to February 11, 1990, Mandela was held in South African prisons — eighteen of those years on Robben Island. Hard labour and severe early restrictions changed over time as prisoners sought improvements.
1994–1999
Served one term as president, fulfilling his promise to step down voluntarily — an example of constitutional succession and a deliberate statement that power must be surrendered as gracefully as it is won.
1993
Shared the Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk for their joint work in negotiating the peaceful end of apartheid and the transition to multiracial democracy in South Africa.
Anti-apartheid revolutionary, political prisoner for 27 years, first Black president of South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Defining Events
The Rivonia Trial
In October 1963, Mandela and colleagues stood trial on sabotage charges that exposed them to a possible death sentence. On April 20, 1964, Mandela delivered his famous speech from the dock: “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.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The speech, reported worldwide, transformed a courtroom defence into a manifesto that would echo for decades.
Release from Prison
Mandela left Victor Verster Prison on 11 February 1990 beside Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Internal resistance, international pressure, economic difficulties, and changes in the Cold War context helped create conditions for negotiation. Release was a decisive opening; apartheid and political violence had not ended.
Inauguration as President
Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first Black president of South Africa before tens of thousands of spectators at the Union Buildings in Pretoria — the same building from which apartheid had been administered for decades. South African crowds and foreign delegations witnessed the transfer of national power. “Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another,” he declared. It was a promise, a prayer, and a warning, delivered by a man who had earned the right to make all three.
Timeline
Born in Mvezo
Born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18 in the village of Mvezo, Transkei, to Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, a chief of the Thembu people, and Nosekeni Fanny. His given name, Rolihlahla, means ‘pulling the branch of a tree’ — colloquially, ‘troublemaker.’ He received the name ‘Nelson’ from a schoolteacher on his first day of primary school, as was the custom for African children in British-influenced schools.
Fled to Johannesburg
At twenty-two, Mandela fled to Johannesburg to escape an arranged marriage organised by his guardian, the regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo. He arrived in the city with almost nothing, worked as a mine security guard, and eventually enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand to study law — the only Black student in the law faculty.
Joined the ANC
Joined the African National Congress and co-founded its Youth League with Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. The Youth League pressed for mass action, including strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience. African nationalism and debates over interracial alliances also shaped its program.
The Defiance Campaign
Led the ANC’s Defiance Campaign against unjust laws — the largest civil disobedience action in South African history to that point. Over 8,500 volunteers were arrested for deliberately violating apartheid statutes. Mandela, as volunteer-in-chief, was convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended sentence.
The Treason Trial
Arrested with 155 others and charged with high treason. The proceedings lasted from 1956 to March 1961, when the remaining thirty accused were acquitted; charges against others had been withdrawn earlier. During the trial, Mandela divorced his first wife Evelyn Mase and married Winnie Madikizela, a social worker who would become one of the most controversial figures in South African politics.
Went Underground
After the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the banning of the ANC, Mandela went underground. He co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the ANC, and led a sabotage campaign targeting government infrastructure. In 1962 he travelled abroad to seek support and trained with Algerian fighters in Morocco and with Ethiopian forces.
Sentenced to Life
Mandela and seven co-defendants receive life sentences on June 12, 1964. Mandela returns to Robben Island, where he remains until the 1982 transfer to Pollsmoor. Work, study and collective political life develop under severe prison restrictions; his LLB is eventually completed through Unisa in 1989.
Released from Prison
Walked free from Victor Verster Prison on February 11 after 10,052 days of imprisonment. President F.W. de Klerk had unbanned the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and thirty other organisations nine days earlier. The negotiations that would end apartheid had begun.
Key Figures
F.W. de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president of South Africa, was an unlikely reformer — a conservative Afrikaner from a family of National Party politicians. In February 1990, he unbanned liberation organizations and announced Mandela’s release. Dismantling apartheid and negotiating a new constitutional order required further decisions, conflict, and participation by many organizations. The two men shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, though their relationship was tense and mistrustful. Mandela respected de Klerk’s courage in choosing negotiation over civil war, but never fully trusted his sincerity — “a man of integrity,” Mandela said, “who had not yet made the full leap.”
Walter Sisulu
Walter Sisulu helped Mandela find professional opportunities and became a close ANC colleague. Sisulu was arrested at Liliesleaf in 1963 while Mandela was already in prison. They were later defendants together at Rivonia and fellow prisoners on Robben Island and at Pollsmoor. Their partnership was one among the many relationships that sustained the movement.
The Legacy of Nelson Mandela
Mandela helped lead South Africa from apartheid to democratic government through struggle and negotiation. His imprisonment shaped his political life, but it should not be treated as a simple story in which suffering automatically produced wisdom.
His presidency supported reconciliation through institutions as well as gestures. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered conditional amnesty under legal requirements, and victims could dispute that settlement. The 1995 Rugby World Cup provided a powerful public image of inclusion; it did not erase inequality or unite every South African. The book uses a dramatised first-person voice, with the limits of that reconstruction made explicit.
Get the Full Book
Read the story of Nelson Mandela — 8 chapters of historical narrative.
Dramatised first-person narrative; not an autobiography.