During the life of Nelson Mandela, South Africa was in complete segregation, having whites live a completely different life than blacks. The topic that I researched were the events that occurred in South Africa, from the time of 1918 to current day. I learned about an important South African man, Nelson Mandela, the man who dedicated his whole life for equality and freedom in South Africa and the ANC, a group of black South African men and women who were willing to protest the apartheid if it meant freedom for all citizens in South Africa. (African National Congress, “About”) Nelson Mandela has impacted everyone’s lives for the better and is an influential person not only to the citizens of South Africa, but to the whole world.
Nelson Mandela
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(Dell, “Nelson Mandela: Freedom for South Africa”) These actions got Mandela in trouble as he and 55 others were put on trial for treason against the South African government. (Dell, “Nelson Mandela: Freedom for South Africa”) In 1952, the government announced that Mandela and the ANC would be banned, hoping that with the ban, it would stop their actions. (Wikipedia, “Nelson Mandela”) Mandela still continued with his activities, raising awareness around the country, until 1956 when he went on trial again. (BBC, “Nelson Mandela: The Fight for Freedom”) During the 5 year trial, it put a significant amount of strain on his personal life, resulting in his divorced with Evelyn and a new marriage with Winnie Madikizela. (Dell, “Nelson Mandela: Freedom for South Africa”) Finally, in 1961, the trial ended with Mandela being found not guilty, but forced him to choose a life in hiding if he wanted to continue with fighting for equality and justice in South Africa. (Dell, “Nelson Mandela: Freedom for South Africa”) Mandela lived a life in hiding, where he visited other African countries and Great Britain hoping to gain supporters to fight the horrible South African …show more content…
Article 1 was clearly violated, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”) Blacks were not seen as being born free and equal in dignity and rights. The government had enforced laws in which they were not treated equally in the spirit of brotherhood. They were known as lesser, being told, “whites are the most civilized and superior, all colored are less". Along with Article 1 being infringed, Article 2 was also broken, saying that “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status…” (“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”) Before Nelson Mandela changed the ways of life in South Africa, there was a clear distinction, based on the color of a person’s skin. Many other human rights violations were committed, and the effects can still be shown today. Although all are equal and free in South Africa, effects are still shown today with the living conditions in South Africa. (Wikipedia, “South Africa”) Many whites still live a privileged life based on their family’s history and ancestry in South Africa, dating back to their lives being more
Curtis, Jerry. "The Role of Nelson Mandela in the Fight against Apartheid in South Africa." Humanities. Humanities, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
This source is helpful since it really demonstrates the main points of Mandela's achievements. For instance he gave hope to millions of Africans and inspired them. The article strongly states the effect he had on African people which is a crucial part of my essay. It is well organized in terms of chronoligal order and importance which is essential in my essay.
The apartheid era in South Africa began shortly after the Boer War as the Afrikaner National Party overtook the government following the country’s independence from Great Britain. The Afrikaners, or Dutch descendants, won the majority in 1948 in the first election for the country’s government. Only a short time after were apartheid laws initiated by the minority white descendants. In the Afrikaans language, apartheid’s literal meaning is “separateness,” which is exactly what the laws were designed for. The Afrikaner National Party initiated the laws to ensure their dominance of economic and social powers, but more importantly to strengthen white people’s preeminence by segregating whites and colored peoples. In order to do this, the Afrikaners limited the freedom of colored people in various ways. First, t...
To understand Mandela’s role in civil disobedience, one must first have the knowledge of his personal life. Mandela was born in the town of Transkei, South Africa into a royal family on July 18,1918 (Klerk). Even though Mandela was born into a royal family, he still noticed the ugly treatment of people in South Africa based on their racial background. Mr. Mandela was educated at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand. Both of these universities are located in South Africa, though Fort Ware is in Eastern Cape while Witwatersrand is located in the capital (Klerk, F). While a student in college Mandela was sent home for protesting against the strict policies of the university with several other classmates. Like many col...
Transition to 1st main point: First, let’s talk about the childhood and education of Mandela
How my partner and I chose Apartheid in South Africa as our topic is when our National History Day teacher, Mr. Peterson had us look into what Nelson Mandela did that affected the people of South Africa. Originally we had Nelson Mandela as our topic. Later into this paper you will see how exactly we got our topic. My partner and I debated over two topics and we chose Nelson Mandela. We ended up writing a semi biography instead of a topic for out theme. Our National History teacher, Mr. Peterson had us go deeper to find a topic that would have been reliable. That's how we ended up finding apartheid in South Africa.
Nelson Mandela’s life can be seen as a double climax: where he survived events directly related to the Apartheid’s cruel/unjust actions along with enduring medical ailments later on in his life. In a four year span, from 1960 to 1964, Mandela had to find strength and will power to persevere through a rollercoaster of events. Mandela’s affiliation in the African National Congress allowed him to organize supporters and protest against the inequality of whites and blacks in Africa, and bring attention to the abuse blacks have been forced to endure for far too long. The constant back and forth commotion between the apartheid and the freedom protestors caused a snowba...
2.2. Supporting fact two: Even though Mandela fought against the white minority ruling over the black community, he did not consider white people to be inferior, as he says in this declaration: “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal
To begin with, no one has ever really been treated equally. Everyone who was non- white was segregated until 1994. This was called apartheid. Apartheid was a system of discrimination based on your race. If you were colored, you were required to follow certain rules. This included; carrying a pass (or legal documents), following specific curfews, and understanding that you were never going to be equal to white people. While the country was mostly made up of colored men and woman, all the power was held by governing white people. While the policy was lifted in 1994, thanks to a man named Nelson Mandel, the entire country still struggles for equality. An example of how it’s still not equal is jobs and money. Since the apartheid, the rise of unemployment has doubled. And a lot of the times, white people refuse to higher colored men because of their racial differences. And even if you are given the opportunity to work, your salary is still lower than white people. This has impacted South Africa because most of the population is colored. About 9 % of the ...
Imagine living in a world where the color of your skin determined where you could eat,walk,vote,live, go to school and even go to the bathroom. This is what Nelson Mandela and the colored people were dealing with in the 1940’s to the 1990’s in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela wanted to change that. Mandela impacted his society by negotiating the end of the apartheid movement, worked hard to achieve civil rights for the colored people, and building a positive relationship between the whites and the African Americans. Mandela is most known for his heroic efforts to end the apartheid in South Africa. “Apartheid means separateness” (Hart).
Mandela's story is an in-depth exploration broader than the light overview of South Africa's apartheid given by the text book. The writing of the autobiography is easy to read, clear and precise. It does not contain any footnotes or endnotes, but in most biographies of any kind there are few citing. There are no maps, charts or tables but in the spirit of it following a mans story there could only be a time line, but a time line would be overwhelmed by the 27 years Mandela spent in prison.
The following July in 1961, police went through an ANC hideout where Mandela was hiding. They arrested a racially diverse group of MK leaders. Evidence was found showing that Mandela and many others who were brought for treason. Mandela and seven other defendants narrowly escaped the gallows and were instead sentenced to life imprisonment during the “Rivonia Trial.”
By this time, Mandela’s struggle was known around the world, and he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1993. Obviously, Nelson Mandela was a hero for stopping the apartheid in South Africa. Even though he broke the law in doing so, Mandela was justified because he was faced with extreme racism, peaceful rallies were only producing violence from the government, and basic humanity in South Africa was bent to make them suffer. When breaking the rules, it is only justified if doing so furthers society or helps others. Otherwise, breaking the law is
In conclusion, Mandela's autobiography is a brilliant book written by an incredible individual. I wish I could of read the whole book for this essay, but that was not possible. It is hard to write an essay on the first 5 parts when I know some things that happened further in the book. I did not know if I should include that information in the essay, but I did not involve it. This book helped to show the other side of the story. We always hear the victor's story and in this class we got to hear the other side of the story.
...violated because even though apartheid was taken away blacks still did not have much opportunity for many things and most were still in poverty. The government described their hardness on the blacks as just “using force so rules aren’t broken, because nobody gets special treatment” (Human Rights in South Africa).