The fight for justice does not end at the prison gates ( a text about Nelson Mandela)

The fight for justice does not end at the prison gates

1. What cost would you be willing to pay for equality? For Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners of Robben Island, that question wasn’t
   hypothetical
   —they really did give up everything in their fight for justice in South Africa.

Apartheid divides South Africa

2. Apartheid

   , which means “apartness” in Afrikaans, was a system of racial segregation that began in South Africa in 1948. Even before apartheid, Black people didn’t have many rights in South Africa. Under apartheid, White people were the most privileged class, followed by Asians, Coloured people (those of mixed race), and Black people, who made up 80% of the South African population.
3. Apartheid included many laws that harmed non-White individuals, but some of the most harmful were the Group Areas Act of 1950 and the Land Acts of 1954 and 1955. Together, these laws made it so that 80% of the land in South Africa was set aside for White people, even though they only made up 15% of the population. Non-White people who wanted to travel into White areas had to carry a pass.
4. Apartheid laws also led to Black South Africans’ loss of citizenship and of the right to vote. And apartheid led to the creation of schools designed to teach Black children how to do menial labor for low pay. Altogether, the laws of apartheid led to a significant loss of freedom and justice for Black South Africans.

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress

5. The African National Congress (ANC) was a group that fought for rights for Black and Coloured people. In 1944, Nelson Mandela joined the ANC. He did things like recruit people to engage in non-violent protests. He also set up the ANC Youth League, a group for young people to get involved in the fight for justice. Although Mandela and other ANC leaders believed in peaceful protest, they eventually decided that armed resistance was the only way to gain equal rights. These ANC leaders set up a secret military group called Umkhonto we Sizwe, or Spear of the Nation, in 1961.
6. In 1963, the South African government discovered documents about Spear of the Nation. Based on these documents, the government sentenced Mandela and seven other men to life in prison, and so, in 1964, they were sent to the Robben Island Prison.

Life on Robben Island

7. Robben Island was a maximum security prison, but even there, White people were treated better than Black people were. For example, Black people weren’t allowed to wear pants and shoes. This meant that, even in winter, they were forced to wear shorts and sandals. Other prisoners could wear pants and shoes. The food for Black prisoners was also worse than the food for other prisoners. Like his fellow political prisoners, Mandela was only allowed one letter and one 30-minute interaction with his wife every six months. Mandela wasn’t allowed to leave for the funerals of his mother or son. The political prisoners spent a lot of time doing hard work in a quarry on the island. To keep up his spirits in these grim conditions, Nelson would frequently recite to himself William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus,” which means “undefeated” or “unconquerable” in Latin.
8. Even in prison, Mandela and other prisoners didn’t stop fighting for equal rights, and their efforts finally began to pay off. In 1966, Black prisoners were granted the right to wear pants and shoes, and in 1977, the rules requiring political prisoners to work in the quarry were made invalid. These seemingly small victories still represented wins for equality and justice.

After release

9. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, 18 of which were spent on Robben Island. After he was released in 1990, he continued to fight for the end of apartheid and for equality and justice for all South Africans. Thanks to his efforts and the efforts of many others, apartheid officially ended in 1991, and in 1994, Mandela was elected President of South Africa.