Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account of the unforgettable events since his release that produced at last a free, multiracial democracy in South Africa. To millions of people around the world, Nelson Mandela stands, as no other living figure does, for the triumph of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, of self-discipline and love over persecution and evil.

Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela is one of the world's most beloved and admired heroes. Born in South Africa in Mvezo, a small village in the remote Transkei, on July 18, 1918, he is from the royal family of the Thembu, who are part of the larger Xhosa people.

After obtaining his B.A. degree at the University of South Africa in 1941, Mandela was drawn to the politics of the African National Congress (ANC), whose strategy was to fight the minority rule with nonviolence. Organizing a campaign in the early 1950s to end the pass system, which required black South Africans to carry passes wherever they traveled, Mandela was arrested on charges of treason, but he was acquitted after a five-year trial.

In 1962, he was arrested again, this time on charges of sabotage and conspiracy. Found guilty, Mandela soon became the world's most famous political prisoner, embarking with his fellow inmates on a system of self-education that earned the Robben Island prison the name of Island University. While incarcerated, Mandela started a negotiation process with the government for the transformation of South Africa from an apartheid state into a democracy. After spending twenty-seven years in prison, Mandela was released in 1990.

Just three years later, in 1993, Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former president F. W. de Klerk fortheir dismantling of apartheid. In 1994, the majority of black South Africans participated in a democratic election in which Mandela became the first black president of the country. He was inaugurated in May 1994 and served as president of South Africa for five years.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780316545853
ISBN 10	0316545856
Title	Long Walk to Freedom
Author	Nelson Mandela
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Little, Brown & Company
Year published	1994-12-31
Number of pages	24
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.