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Birth and childhood
Rolihlahla, Madiba, or as we know, Nelson Mandela, was born in a village called Mvezo. His childhood developed as it should, but some years later, his dad died. As a consequence he started listening to the tribal chiefs and starting to realize about the real world and the justice that was needed but nobody was fighting for it. So, when we was sixteen years old, he joined the tribal council, three years later he started in a new highschool for black people to fisih his studies. -
Adolescence and youth
He realized one of the tribal chief wanted him to get married, so Nelson scaped and went to Johannesburgo, where he met Walter Sisulu who influenced him the most, and by this men is how Nelson met his wife Evelyn Mase in 1944.
Everyone who knew him can tell Nelson was a extraordinary and reliable person, he has a really fascinating capacity to work. Sisulu noticed this and put him in the ANC, a movement to fight against the oppression that black South Africans had been suffering for decades. -
A real leader who was segragated
A little later he bacame one of the one of the founding leaders of the ANC, his ideology was an African socialism: nationalist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist.
The triumph of the Afrikaaner National Party, it put in place a complete system of segregation in social, economic, cultural, political and territorial discrimination to the detriment of the black majority; it was the so-called apartheid or "separate development of each race in the geographical area assigned to it" -
Problems, and the solutions by a real hero
A decree forbade the mixed marriages, later laws and regulations finished configuring the segregationist system: official recognition of races, segregation when using services, separation in factories and public transport.
By the inspiration of Ghandi, the ANC proposed nonviolent methods of struggle; the Congressional Youth League. Mandela preside the federation of the ANC South African province of Transvaal, he had become the de facto leader of the movement. -
The exacerbation of apartheid
The hardening of the racist regime reached its culmination in 1956, with the government's plan to create seven reservations, it was intended to confine the black majority, which represented more than 70% of the population.
The ANC noticed that they would have to use the violence or the problem won't solve itselt, but because of this, a lot of people were imprisioned, and Mandela was one of them, but months later he went out because the didn't have enough evidences. In 1960 69 people were killed. -
The liberation and imprisioned
Mandela was honorary secretary of the All Africa ANC, a movement that adopted sabotage as a means of fighting the regime of the newly proclaimed South African Republic; He was in charge of directing the armed wing of the ANC. His strategy focused on attacking facilities of economic importance excluding attacks on human lives. Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison. In prison, he was convicted of sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy to overthrow the government at the Rivonia Trial. -
Period: to
The long awaited freedom
A prisoner for 27 years, the South African government rejected calls for his release. Nelson became a symbol of the fight against apartheid, represented the suffering and lack of freedom of all black South Africans.Finally, Frederik De Klerk, opened the way to dismantle racial segregation. In February 1990, he legalized the ANC and freed Mandela, who negotiate the dismantling of apartheid; Both were able to complete the negotiations. Mandela and De Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize -
A real president
The elections made Mandela the fisrt black president of South Africa, he launched a policy of national reconciliation.Mandela initiated the Reconstruction and Development Plan, which allocated large amounts of money to improve the standard of living of black South Africans in issues such as education, housing, health or employment, and also promoted the drafting of a new constitution for the country. He handed over ANC leadership to Thabo Mbeki who won the elections in 1999 -
A good ending
He received multiple awards, although his health problems made his public appearances more and more sporadic. In 2010 he was present at the Soccer World Cup in South Africa, and received the support of the crowd;While seriously ill, the South African population celebrate its 95th anniversary. He is one of the most charismatic and influential characters of the 20th century, he has entered history as the embodiment of the fight for freedom and justice and as a symbol of an entire nation.