Why mandela is famous

This campaign of civil disobedience against six unjust laws was a joint programme between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. 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.

At the end of he was banned for the first time. As a restricted person he was only permitted to watch in secret as the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown on 26 June Mandela was arrested in a countrywide police swoop on 5 December , which led to the Treason Trial. 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 On 21 March police killed 69 unarmed people in a protest in Sharpeville against the pass laws.

Mandela and his colleagues in the Treason Trial were among thousands detained during the state of emergency. During the trial Mandela married a social worker, Winnie Madikizela, on 14 June They had two daughters, Zenani and Zindziswa. The couple divorced in Days 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.

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. In the face of massive mobilisation of state security the strike was called off early. In June he was asked to lead the armed struggle and helped to establish Umkhonto weSizwe Spear of the Nation , which launched on 16 December with a series of explosions.

He travelled around Africa and visited England to gain support for the armed struggle. Following a lung infection, Nelson Mandela sadly died in December , aged 95 years old. Every year on this day, people around the world honour his legacy by helping their communities and making the world a better place. While you wait for it to be checked and approved why not to add a pre-selected message and a cool badge. This is an amazing site for facts this totally saved me from my angry teacher waving her assignment!

Pls send more! This is so cool. It is soo informative I didnt know some of these things about nelson mandela. He is amazing!!! I have actually met him once. OMG I am so happy just thinking about it. So cool No:1 Mandela fan.

See all. Discover the remarkable life and work of Nelson Mandela — who helped change the lives of millions of South African people — in our Nelson Mandela facts… Throughout history, lots of people around the world have faced discrimination — where they are treated differently because of their race, skin colour, gender, age and lots of other things, too.

What did Nelson Mandela do? Robben Island, South Africa, Prisoners were isolated from the outside world, but could see Cape Town, with its Table Mountain, mere kilometers in the distance.

Mandela and his compatriots were sent to a maximum security prison on Robben Island in There were no white prisoners on Robben Island. Mandela spent 18 of 27 years of imprisonment there, held with the other political prisoners who were kept in a separate section.

Mandela mending clothes at Robben Island, He is wearing shorts because black prisoners were not permitted to wear long pants. Mandela and his fellow political prisoners challenged this rule and it was eventually changed.

On Robben Island, prisoners faced harsh conditions meant to break their resolve. Black men were forced to wear shorts and sandals, even in winter, while other prisoners could wear pants and shoes. Political prisoners faced the worst conditions of all.

Condemned to hard labour, Mandela and his fellow activists spent more than a decade breaking rocks in a lime quarry. Some prisoners were assaulted and tortured by guards. Contact with the outside world was almost completely severed. He was denied permission to attend the funeral of his mother, who passed away in , and one of his sons, who died in a car accident in It would be 21 years before he could hold his wife, Winnie Mandela, again.

His two young daughters, Zeni and Zindzi, had to wait until the age of 16 to see him. Glass walls separated prisoners from visitors. They talked on phones as guards listened to every word. Letters were heavily censored, with words blacked out if they were not strictly personal. After prisoners found ways to read blackened content, censors began cutting out large portions of letters, reducing them to shreds. Prisoners breaking stones at Robben Island, They were not allowed to talk or sing while working.

Although these precious letters do not reach [you], I shall nevertheless keep on trying by writing whenever that is possible…. It is some means of passing on to you my warmest love and good wishes, and tends to calm down the shooting pains that hit me whenever I think of you.

Neslon Mandela from a letter written to his daughters Zeni and Zindzi Mandela. Despite their treatment, the prisoners on Robben Island continued to resist the apartheid regime in thousands of ways.

Mandela and other prisoners advocated for improved conditions and rights for all prisoners, regardless of race. In , black prisoners secured the right to wear long pants instead of shorts. He served 27 years in prison. Apartheid was the official policy of the National Party, which became the governing party of South Africa in Apartheid, which means "separateness", was the practice of official racial segregation in every aspect of life.

Under apartheid, everyone in South Africa had to be classified according to a particular racial group. This classification determined where someone could be born, where they could live, where they could go to school, where they could work, where they could be treated if they were sick and where they could be buried if they died. Only white people could vote and they had the best opportunities and the most money was spent on their facilities.

Apartheid made others live in poverty. Black South Africans' lives were strictly controlled. Many thousands of people died in the struggle to end apartheid. Mandela's vision during the apartheid era was for the eradication of racism and for the establishment of a constitutional democracy.

He envisioned a South Africa in which all its citizens had equal rights and where every adult would have the right to vote for the government of his or her choice. Mandela was driven by an unshakeable belief in the equality of all people and his determination to overthrow the system of apartheid in South Africa.