What Was Nelson Mandela

Throughout his 95 years of living, Nelson Mandela earned the title of many things: global peacemaker, civil rights activist, writer, president, politician, philanthropist, and many more. As an active member of the anti-apartheid movement in 1942, Mandela was known for peaceful and non-violent protests against South Africa's government and their policy of Apartheid, a system of racial segregation. After 20 years of these attempts, realizing non-violence was not working to put an end to apartheid, Mandela moved on to armed struggle. The African National Congress was made illegal and Mandela was put in prison for 27 years for political offenses; sabotage and guerrilla war tactics, after coordinating a workers' strike. 18 of those 27 years in prison

Because the government of South Africa knew the members of the African National Congress were set on ending apartheid, they purposely abused them more than the other prisoners. They treated them brutally, to the point where they would hopefully give up on their fight against the system. Mandela mentions: "the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality-- all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are." The guards would give the prisoners long, hard tasks of physical labor, such as crushing rocks into gravel. Along with that, the prisoners were given little food, hardly any contact with family members, and were often punished with solitary

The media had brought up allegations about "the inhumane conditions on the island... being assaulted and tortured. These allegations embarrassed the government." The government of South Africa was humiliated that people knew about the abuse of the prisoners and did not want the rest of the country, and the rest of the world to see their wrongdoings and decide to fight against apartheid. They did not want to be overruled and wanted to keep everybody on their side. "To alleviate growing internal and international criticism, the South African government in 1966 announced the creation of Bantustans (black states) within the South African territory." As soon as they saw people beginning to oppose Apartheid, they tried to justify it by giving people of color their own territory, and sent several journalists to Robben Island to prove that they were being treated right so the outside world would not worry as much. The warders hid all evidence of the hard labor they were actually making the prisoners participate in, and gave them something simpler, so that the outsiders would think the prisoners were being treated fine and no one would go against the