Britannica Remembers Nelson Mandela

Encyclopædia Britannica’s first biography of Nelson Mandela appeared in 1965, published in the Britannica Book of the Year prepared by Britannica’s London office:

Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla, South African political leader and Transkeian tribal prince (b. Umtata, Tembuland, 1918), in 1964 attracted worldwide attention as the central figure in the “Rivonia” sabotage trial (so-called after a police raid in July 1963 on the Rivonia home of Arthur Goldreich who escaped and went into exile in London). Mandela, who practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for several years, formerly served as secretary-general of the African National Congress (banned since 1960). He was actively engaged in the defiance campaign against apartheid in 1952 and was a founder (Nov. 1961) of the sabotage organization known as Umkonto we Ziswe (“Spear of the Nation”). Mandela was one of the accused in the South African treason trial which, with preliminary hearings, lasted from Dec. 1956 to March 1961. He avoided arrest, became an underground leader of the National Action Council, which he organized in May 1961, and was dubbed the “Black Pimpernel.” He left the country in Feb. 1962 to attend the Addis Ababa conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement and sought support elsewhere in Africa and in Britain. After his arrest near Howick, Natal, on Aug. 5, 1962, he was brought to trial and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. After being convicted in the Rivonia trial of plotting “violent revolution to block the government’s racial separation plans,” Mandela was sentenced on June 12, [1964,] along with seven others, to life imprisonment. The trial, which was the most important political one held in South Africa since the Nationalist government came to power in 1948, received considerable publicity partly because of a British campaign to focus interest on the fate of the accused. After the conviction, an official British appeal to the South African prime minister for reduced sentences for Mandela and others was rejected.

That Book of the Year, which described the events of 1964, also noted Mandela’s sentencing in its article on South Africa:

There was world-wide interest in the trial of eight members of the “National High Command” of the “National Committee of Liberation” and the “Spear of the Nation” (Umkinto wa Sizwe) who were arrested in 1963 at Rivonia, Johannesburg. Seven, including the former African National Congress leaders, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, were sentenced to life imprisonment; one was acquitted. The government rejected pleas for clemency from the United Nations and other quarters on the ground that the accused had received a fair trial by an impartial court. The Rivonia case was followed by the trials of other members of the “National Council of Liberation.”

In 1965 Britannica’s offices in London and in Chicago prepared separate Book of the Year products. The American edition did not include a biography of Mandela, although it reported his sentencing in its article on Africa:

In South Africa eight men, including Nelson R. Mandela, deputy president of the banned African Nationalist Congress, and Walter M. E. Sisulu, its secretary-general, after having admitted organizing a campaign of sabotage against apartheid, were convicted. UN Security Council resolutions of June 9 and 18, as part of a general condemnation of South African racial policies, requested clemency for the convicted men.

In its article on South Africa, it used much the same language as the edition prepared in London but with some factual and stylistic variations:

International interest centered on the trial of nine members of the “national high command” of the National Committee of Liberation and the Spear of the Nation organizations, who were arrested in 1963. Eight, including former African National Congress leaders Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, were convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government by force and were sentenced to life imprisonment; one was acquitted. The government rejected pleas for clemency from the United Nations, stating that the accused had received a fair trial by an impartial court.

During Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment

The first biography of Mandela in the Encyclopædia Britannica print encyclopaedia appeared in 1985, as part of a major revision of the encyclopaedia’s 15th edition. Although a typo marred its rendering of Mandela’s name, it significantly extended the Book of the Year’s treatment in 1965:

Mandela, Nelson (Rohihlahia) (b. July 1918, Transkei, S.Afr.), South African lawyer and black nationalist, who, in 1964, was given life imprisonment for his political activities. His civil-rights cause became celebrated worldwide.

The son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu tribe, he was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. Joining the African National Congress in 1944, he engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies after 1948 and eventually went on trial for treason in 1956–61 (acquitted 1961). The following year he was jailed again and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.

In 1963 he, while in prison, and nine other men (five black, three white, and one Indian) were prosecuted in the celebrated Rivonia Trial, named after a fashionable suburb of Johannesburg, where raiding police discovered quantities of arms and equipment at the headquarters of the underground Umkonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, the African National Congress’ military wing). Mandela was linked with the organization and charged with seeking to overthrow the government by violence; Mandela and six others admitted their guilt. On June 11, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with lesser sentences being given to eight others and with one being discharged. From 1964 to 1982 he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.

His wife, Winnie Mandela, tried to advertise his cause and was eventually banned and restricted to a black ghetto near the town of Brandfort, 250 miles (400 kilometres) southwest of Johannesburg. Mandela himself was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award in 1979, the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights in 1981, and a number of honorary doctorates from universities. A number of his writings and speeches were collected in No Easy Walk to Freedom (1965), The Struggle Is My Life (1978), and I Am Prepared to Die, 4th rev. ed. (1979).

A year later, in the Britannica Book of Year that summarized the events of 1985, another biography of Mandela appeared, written by Colin Legum, a correspondent for The Observer newspaper. It appeared between biographies of David Mamet and Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici:

Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla

During the 21 years he had served as a life prisoner, Nelson Mandela had become black South Africa’s folk hero. Opinion polls showed that 70% of the country’s 23.9 million blacks regarded him as their leader. His importance in the republic’s changing political system was recognized by Pres. P. W. Botha when he offered to release Mandela provided he first renounced violence. As the initiator of the armed struggle, Mandela refused the offer of personal freedom. However, when the British human rights campaigner Lord Bethell was allowed to visit him in Pollsmoor Prison, Mandela said he was ready to call a truce in the armed struggle if the authorities would “legalize us, treat us like a political party, and negotiate with us.”

Mandela was given his life sentence in 1964 after admitting responsibility for having started Umkonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) to wage an armed struggle against South Africa’s system of apartheid (racial separation). While in prison he was elected president-general of the banned African National Congress (ANC), the country’s oldest black nationalist organization, founded in 1912. His wife, Winnie, also gained prominence by her defiance of the authorities despite a banning order restricting her to Brandfort, a small village in the Orange Free State.

Nelson Mandela was born in July 1918 at Umtata in Tembuland, Transkei. After completing his education at a Methodist missionary school in Transkei, he took an arts degree at the black University College (now University) of Fort Hare, the nursery of black nationalist politicians. In 1941 he hurriedly left home to avoid a traditionally arranged marriage; instead, he began to study law at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. After qualifying he entered into a law partnership with Oliver Tambo (q.v.), and both founded the ANC Youth League in 1944.

The Sharpeville shootings in 1960 followed by the banning of the ANC and the Pan-African Congress led to Mandela’s decision to break with the ANC’s traditional policies of nonviolent resistance. He clandestinely went abroad in 1962 to seek support elsewhere in Africa and in Britain. On his return home he was arrested, and in November 1962 he was sentenced to five years in prison for subversive activity and leaving the country illegally. While still in jail he was prosecuted along with other ANC leaders in the celebrated Rivonia trial of 1963–64, which led to his life sentence.

Nelson Mandela’s freedom and presidency

In 1990—a year that the Britannica Book of the Year called “a momentous one for South Africa”—Mandela was released from prison and became deputy president of the ANC. Another biography of Mandela by Legum appeared in the Book of the Year published in 1991:

Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla

Often described as “the world’s most famous prisoner,” Nelson Mandela gained his freedom in February 1990 after spending more than 27 years in jail in South Africa. He had been given a life sentence on charges arising from his role in embarking on an armed struggle and establishing Umkonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). “The struggle is my life,” he wrote in 1961. “I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.” He was 71 when he finally left prison. His release met with rapturous welcome from black South Africans, as well as from many whites. His international fame was recognized by the manner in which he was received in the capitals of Africa, as well as in Washington, D.C., London, Ottawa, and Stockholm. He had earlier been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

After his release, Mandela committed himself wholeheartedly to negotiations with the South African government over a nonracial democratic constitution. He established a close rapport with South African Pres. F.W. de Klerk, whom he described as “a man of integrity.” In the difficult talks, Mandela displayed patience and flexibility toward overcoming obstacles to serious negotiations for a new constitution. Although the recognized charismatic leader of the ANC, he insisted on remaining deputy president in deference to Oliver Tambo, who was recovering following a severe stroke.

One of Mandela’s major contributions was to help persuade the ANC to suspend its armed struggle, a precondition demanded by the government before negotiations could begin. Apart from the difficulties inherent in the negotiating process, he was required to deal with the problem of establishing the ANC as a legal national movement. Not the least of his troubles was the arrest of his wife, Winnie, on charges of abduction and torture arising from the death of a young black militant. He remained deeply loyal to her.

Mandela was born in 1918 in Transkei into the ruling family of the Tembu. While a student at the University College of Fort Hare, he became embroiled in politics and was expelled for his involvement in a student strike. He left Transkei to avoid a tribal marriage and for a time was a policeman at the Transvaal mines. He completed a B.A. degree by correspondence and later gained a law degree at Witwatersrand University, which enabled him to set up his own law practice with Tambo. Mandela was given a nine-month sentence for his political activities in 1952, and he was charged in 1956 with high treason but was acquitted. He was again arrested in 1962, and two years later he was given a life sentence for conspiracy to overthrow the government by revolution and for assisting an armed invasion of South Africa.

In 1993 Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, an occasion that spurred another brief profile of Mandela in the Book of the Year published in 1994. That same year Mandela became the first black president of South Africa, a position in which he was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki in 1999. Five years later, in 2004, “former president Nelson Mandela officially retired from public life,” as longtime Britannica contributor Martin Legassick noted in the Book of the Year published in 2005.

By the time of the retirement of the print version of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in 2012, its biography of Mandela had expanded considerably since 1985 and was accompanied by a 1990 photo of Mandela:

Mandela, Nelson, in full Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (b. July 18, 1918, Umtata, Cape of Good Hope, S.Af.), South African black nationalist and statesman whose long imprisonment (1962–90) and subsequent ascension to the presidency (1994) symbolized the aspirations of South Africa’s black majority. He led the country until 1999.

The son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people, Nelson Mandela renounced his claim to the chieftainship to become a lawyer. He attended the University College of Fort Hare and studied law at the University of Witwatersrand; he later passed the qualification exam to become a lawyer and in 1952 opened a firm with Oliver Tambo. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC) (q.v.), a black-liberation group, and in 1949 became one of its leaders, helping to revitalize the organization and opposing the apartheid (q.v.) policies of the ruling National Party. Mandela went on trial for treason in 1956–61 but was acquitted. During the extended court proceedings he divorced his first wife and married Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela (Winnie Mandela); they divorced in 1996. After the massacre of unarmed Africans by police forces at Sharpeville in 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC, Mandela abandoned his nonviolent stance and began advocating acts of sabotage. In 1962 he was jailed and sentenced to five years in prison.

In 1963 the imprisoned Mandela and several other men were tried for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy in the celebrated Rivonia Trial, named after a fashionable suburb of Johannesburg where raiding police had discovered quantities of arms and equipment at the headquarters of the ANC’s military wing, the underground Umkhonto We Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”). Mandela had been a founder of the organization and admitted the truth of some of the charges that were made against him. On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

From 1964 to 1982 Mandela was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town. He was subsequently kept at the maximum-security Pollsmoor Prison until 1988, when he was hospitalized for tuberculosis. Mandela retained wide support among South Africa’s black population, and his imprisonment because a cause célèbre among the regime’s international opponents. The South African government under President F.W. de Klerk released Mandela from prison on Feb. 11, 1990. On March 2 Mandela was chosen deputy president of the ANC, and he became its president in July 1991. Mandela and de Klerk worked to end apartheid and bring about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy in South Africa. In 1993 they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts.

In April 1994 South Africa held its first all-race elections, which were won by Mandela and the ANC. As president, he established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated human rights violations under apartheid, and introduced housing, education, and economic-development initiatives designed to improve the living standards of the country’s black population. In 1996 he oversaw the enactment of a new democratic constitution. The following year Mandela resigned his post with the ANC and in 1999 did not seek a second term as South African president. After leaving office in June, he retired from active politics.

Mandela’s writings and speeches were collected in No Easy Walk to Freedom (1965) and I Am Prepared to Die, 4th rev. ed. (1979). His autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, was published in 1994.

Details about Winnie Mandela’s life that had appeared in previous biographies of Nelson Mandela were included in the print Encyclopædia Britannica’s biography of her, which immediately followed his.

Since 1998 the electronic version of Britannica’s biography of Nelson Mandela has been revised more than a dozen times, and today that biography differs considerably from the one that appears in the last printing of the Encyclopædia Britannica.