FAMOUS PEOPLE SKETCH ICON SERIES

In June 1961 he was asked to lead the armed struggle and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), which launched on 16 December 1961 with a series of explosions. In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early. After he and his colleagues were acquitted in the Treason Trial, Mandela went underground and began planning a national strike for 29, 30 and 31 March. The couple divorced in 1996.ĭays before the end of the Treason Trial, Mandela travelled to Pietermaritzburg to speak at the All-in Africa Conference, which resolved that he should write to Prime Minister Verwoerd requesting a national convention on a non-racial constitution, and to warn that should he not agree there would be a national strike against South Africa becoming a republic. They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa.

FAMOUS PEOPLE SKETCH ICON TRIAL

Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency.ĭuring the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June 1958. This led to the country’s first state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) on 8 April. On 21 March 1960 police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws.

Men and women of all races found themselves in the dock in the marathon trial that only ended when the last 28 accused, including Mandela, were acquitted on 29 March 1961. Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December 1956, which led to the 1956 Treason Trial. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June 1955. 2Īt the end of 1952 he was banned for the first time. He and 19 others were charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign and sentenced to nine months of hard labour, suspended for two years.Ī two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Mandela to practise law, and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black-owned law firm in the 1950s, Mandela & Tambo. This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. In 1952 he was chosen as the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign with Maulvi Cachalia as his deputy. He completed his BA through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation in 1943. He then did his articles through a firm of attorneys – Witkin, Eidelman and Sidelsky. There he worked as a mine security officer and after meeting Walter Sisulu, an estate agent, he was introduced to Lazer Sidelsky. They ran away to Johannesburg instead, arriving there in 1941.

On his return to the Great Place at Mqhekezweni the King was furious and said if he didn’t return to Fort Hare he would arrange wives for him and his cousin Justice. Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare but did not complete the degree there as he was expelled for joining in a student protest.

He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where he matriculated. He attended primary school in Qunu where his teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave him the name Nelson, in accordance with the custom of giving all schoolchildren “Christian” names.

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