February 11, 2016
On this day in 1990, Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South Africa’s apartheid, was released from prison after 27 years of imprisonment. An international symbol of equality and human rights, Mandela, who was a lawyer by trade, joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944. As part of the oldest black political organization in South Africa, Mandela quickly became a leader, heading up the Johannesburg’s youth wing. In 1952, he moved up in the organization and became the deputy national president of the ANC, focusing his efforts of advocating for a nonviolent resistance to the apartheid which was South Africa’s institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation. Though Mandela continued to advocate for nonviolent solutions, after a massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson assisted in the creation of a paramilitary branch of ANC. The branch was tasked with engaging in guerilla warfare against the white minority government of the time. One year later, Mandela was arrested for treason and, although he was acquitted, was subsequently arrested again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country. After this sentence, he was put back on trial in 1964, and after being convicted of sabotage, was sentenced to life in prison. On February 11, 1990, he was released from prison, almost 30 years after his initial arrest.
—Alexandra Grant