Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Madiba). by Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (Nelson Mandela, 2000 Uploaded by Fæ) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons

NELSON MANDELA  (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013)

1918. 18^thof July 1918 – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born into the Madiba clan in Mvezo, Transkei,

He attended primary school in Qunu where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the name Nelson, apparently it was custom to give all schoolchildren “Christian” names.

1930. His father dies when he was only 12 years old.

He completed his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute and went on to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school.

1940. Nelson Mandela began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University College of Fort Hare He did not complete the degree as he was expelled for joining in a student protest.

1941. Finds work as a mine security officer.

Secures work as an articled clerk at law firm Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman. It is here he meets members sympathetic to the ANC and the Communist Party. Mandela becomes increasingly politicised. He attends communist meetings and is impressed with their ideals of racial equality but is not as enthusiastic about their atheism and primary focus on class warfare. In future, they will walk a similar path but he does not go all the way. This ideal of class equality mixes and marries well with revolutionary ideals of racial equality. Nevertheless, they are different. This ideological mix will set more seeds for a rainbow nation.

Continuing his higher education, Mandela signed up to a University of South Africa correspondence course, working on his bachelor’s degree at night.

1943. Completes BA through the University of South Africa.  Begins legal studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

1943. Mandela comes under the influence of African nationalist Anton Lembede. His approach of political self-determination by Africans for Africans differs to mainstream ANC followers who sees as too passive. He rejects the support of white sympathisers, communists or non-Africans and drives for a type of African Nationalism. Mandela becomes sympathetic to and a supporter of Lembede’s more militant, more African approach to self-determination.

1944. Joins the African National Congress. Helps form the ANC Youth League(ANCYL ).

1944. Marries nurse Evelyn Mase. They have four children. Two sons, Madiba Thembekile and Makgatho and two daughters both called Makaziwe, the first of whom died in infancy.

1948.  Although there are already many racist laws in South Africa. Apartheid legislation is introduced by the newly elected National Party. Racial segregation is to be codified, institutionalised, expanded and enforced.

1949. The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act prohibits marriage between persons of different races

1949. Nelson Mandela rose through the ranks of the ANCYL and through its work, helps introduce direct action against apartheid, through boycotts and strikes

1950. Mandela  joins the ANC National Executive. His belief and determination for an African only campaign changes and he once again joins forces with non-africans and communists to fight the apartheid regime.

1950. Immorality Amendment Act. Makes sexual relations with a person of a different race a criminal offence.

1950. The Suppression of Communism Act. Bans any organisation with communist sympathies. Communism is loosely defined and is used as a weapon to tackle opposition groups.

1950. Population Registration Act. Divides the population into racial categories White, Coloured, Indian and Black. Everyone has to have an ID card identifying which race they belong to. Tribunals are set up to determine the race of citizens.

1950. Group Areas Act. Race is used to determine where you are allowed to live. Towns, suburbs and cities become race based. Different racial groups are concentrated into their own separate areas.

1951. The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act. Introduced to move, control or demolish black shanty towns.

1952. The ANC begin preparation for a joint Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience with the South African Indian Congress and communist groups. They decide on a path of nonviolent resistance influenced by Mahatma Gandhi.

1952. On 30 July, Mandela was arrested under the Suppression of Communism Act and stood trial as a part of the 21 accused – among them Moroka, Sisulu and Dadoo – in Johannesburg. Found guilty of “statutory communism”, their sentence of nine months hard labour was suspended for two years. In December, Mandela was given a six-month ban from attending meetings or talking to more than one individual at a time

1952. A two-year diploma in law on top of his BA allowed Nelson Mandela to practice law. With Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo.

1953. Reservation of Separate Amenities Act .Public premises, properties, vehicles and services including buses, taxis, hospitals, schools, universities and even beaches are segregated by race. “Whites only” signs appear everywhere, even park benches. Public amenities and services available to Indian and coloured people were inferior to whites. Those offered to blacks were even worse.

1953. Bantu Education Act. Introduction of a segregated education system.

1955. 26^th of June. The Congress of the People was held in Kliptown to lay out the vision of the South African people. The Freedom Charter was the core statement of principles of the Congress Alliance, consisting of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), and the Congress of Democrats. The Freedom Charter became the manifesto of the African National Congress and the South African liberation struggle against apartheid. As a restricted person Mandela was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted.

The Freedom Charter starts with:
“We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:

• that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
• that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
• that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
• that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
• And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;
• And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won…”

1955. Nelson Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5^th of December.

1956. 156 anti-apartheid leaders, many of them leaders of the Congress Alliance are arrested and charged with high treason. Three years later the charges are changed and it proceeds with only 30 accused. Mandela is one of them

1958. Effectively separated since 1955 Mandela files for divorce in January 1958; the divorce was finalised in March, with the children placed in Evelyn’s care.

1958. During the trial on 14 June 1958 Nelson Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela. They have two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa.

1959. In April, militant Africanists dissatisfied with the ANC’s collaborative approach found the Pan-African Congress (PAC).

1960. On 21 March police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest against the pass laws held at Sharpeville. This led to the country’s first state of emergency and the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress on the 8^th of April. Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency.

1961. 29 March 1961 the last 30 accused, including Mandela are acquitted. As soon as he is acquitted Mandela goes underground and helps plan a national strike. In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early.

1961.  In June he was asked to lead the armed struggle and help establish Umkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation). Officially separate from the ANC, it will become the movements armed wing. Initially it was to target non-civilian targets and only in a worst case scenario would resort to guerrilla warfare or terrorism.

1962. On the 11^th of January, using the adopted name David Motsamayi, Nelson Mandela secretly left South Africa. He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed struggle. He received military training in Morocco and Ethiopia and returned to South Africa in July 1962.

1962. On 6^th of November, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning apartheid policies.

1962. 5 August, police capture Mandela near Howick. He was charged with leaving the country illegally and inciting workers to strike. He was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment which he began serving in the Pretoria Local Prison.

1963. On 7th of August the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181, calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa.

1963. On 27^th of May he was transferred to Robben Island and returned to Pretoria on 12th of June. Within a month police raided a secret hideout in Rivonia used by ANC and Communist Party activists, and several of his comrades were arrested. Found documents would link Mandela to ongoing  ANC activities and would be used against him in a new trial.

1963.  9 October 1963, the Rivonia trial begins. Nelson Mandela and ten others are put on trial for four charges relating to sabotage and communism. While facing the death penalty his words to the court at the end of his famous ‘Speech from the Dock’ on 20 April 1964 become immortalised:

“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 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.”

1964. 11^th of June Nelson Mandela and seven other accused: Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Denis Goldberg, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment rather than death. Denis Goldberg was sent to Pretoria Prison because he was white, the others went to Robben Island.

Mandela would remain on Robben Island for 18 years. He was isolated from non-political prisoners and kept in a small concrete cell 2.4 m by 2.1 m. His bedding was a straw mat. He would spend his days breaking rocks into gravel, until being reassigned in January 1965 to work in a lime quarry. The glare from the lime permanently damaged his eyesight.

1968. Nelson Mandela’s mother dies in 1968.

1969. His eldest son Thembi dies in 1969. He is not allowed to attend either funeral.

1970. The Black Homeland Citizenship Act.  A new strategy in Apartheid policy forces blacks into being a citizen or member of one of ten separate autonomous territories.

1982. On 31 March Nelson Mandela was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town with Sisulu, Mhlaba and Mlangeni. Kathrada joined them in October. When he returned to the prison in November 1985 after prostate surgery Nelson Mandela was held alone. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee visited him in hospital.

Contact is initiated between Mandela and the apartheid regime. Secret peace talks will go on for years.

1985. On 20 July, President Botha declared a State of Emergency in 36 magisterial districts

1988. On 12 August Mandela is taken to hospital where he is diagnosed with tuberculosis. After more than three months in two hospitals he was transferred on 7 December 1988 to a house at Victor Verster Prison near Paarl where he spent his last 14 months of imprisonment.

1989. In the last months of his imprisonment, he finishes his law degree through the University of South Africa and graduates in absentia at a ceremony in Cape Town.

1990. 2nd of February newly elected President F.W  de Klerk announces he will repeal discriminatory laws and lift the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the United Democratic Front.

1990. Mandela is released from prison on Sunday 11 February 1990, nine days after the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and nearly four months after the release of his remaining Rivonia comrades. Throughout his imprisonment he had rejected at least three conditional offers of release.

1991. Nelson Mandela immersed himself in official talks to end white minority rule and was elected ANC President.

1993. 1 April. After talks have collapsed several times since 1991, a Multiparty Negotiating Forum (MPNF) gathers for the first time, this time with all relevant parties. By the 18^th of November they have hammered out an interim Constitution.

1993. Mandela and President FW de Klerk jointly win the Nobel Peace Prize.

1994. 27 April 1994 Mandela votes for the first time in his life. The ANC wins 62% of the vote and The Nationals 20%. They form a power sharing Government of National Unity which is a coalition government with a five year sunset clause.

1994. On 10 May 1994 he was inaugurated South Africa’s first democratically elected President.

1996. The Truth and Reconciliation hearings start. The mandate of the commission was to bear witness to, record and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as reparation and rehabilitation

1996. The united Parliament develops a new constitution for South Africa.

1996. Mandela divorces Winnie.

1998. On his 80th birthday in 1998 he married Graça Machel, his third wife.

1999. After only one term as President, Nelson Mandela steps down.

2013. He died at his home in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013. He was 95 years of age, had 3 marriages and 6 children. He was imprisoned for 27 years. Mandela held numerous positions : ANCYL secretary (1948); ANCYL president (1950); ANC Transvaal president (1952); deputy national president (1952), ANC president (1991) and president of South Africa (1994).

This timeline is mostly an amalgam pinched/borrowed/inspired by nelsonmandela.org, wikipedia, anc.org.za and various newspapers.