Summary of the book "Bedtime Biography: Long Walk to Freedom" - By Nelson Mandela

Who can benefit the most from this book:

• People interested in Nelson Mandela.
• Anyone curious about South African history.
• Proponents of social justice.

Introduction

Are you willing to give up everything in order to combat injustice - your freedom, your family, and your future? Nelson Mandela was repeatedly confronted with this question. And his answer was always "yes" throughout South Africa's struggle against apartheid. He devoted his life to the battle against apartheid, enduring decades of public persecution, living underground, and thirty years in prison.

On February 11, 1990, he stepped out of prison, and the world watched in awe as the system he'd battled for his entire life began to unravel. Though apartheid did not end as a result of his efforts alone, his imprisonment had come to symbolize the regime's unfairness - and it did not last long after he was released. The legislative institutions that underpinned apartheid were removed in 1991, and the country had its first free elections three years later. South Africans of all races, both black and white, were finally given the opportunity to vote. Nelson Mandela became president of a new, hopeful, and free nation in the same year, at the age of 75.

Where did he get the strength to battle for so long and so hard? What motivated the most famous freedom warrior of the twentieth century? We'll take a thoughtful journey through his lengthy path to freedom in this Bedtime Biography.

Chapter 1:

The Transkei, in South Africa's Eastern Cape, is a magnificent region with rolling hills and attractive valleys. The settlement of Mvezo is nestled within magnificent beauty. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born here in 1918, and this is where he'd always call home. Rolihlahla, which means "troublemaker," was Mandela's given name at birth — his parents had no idea how suitable the name would be. Rolihlahla wasn't given the name "Nelson" until he was seven, on his first day at a local Christian school. It was common practice in South Africa's British missionary schools to substitute African names with British ones. Mandela has no idea why his teacher chose the name Nelson, but it has stuck with him.

The Xhosa people live in the Transkei. Mandela's ancestors are from the Thembu people, a sizable community who have lived in the area for millennia. The Mandelas were royalty among them. Nelson's father, Gadla, was a local chief as well as an adviser to the Thembu royal family. When Nelson was a child, however, his father ran afoul of a British magistrate, who had asserted the right to recognize local authorities as conquerors. Gadla was a proud and defiant man who refused to recognize British authority in resolving a local conflict. He was stripped of his title, livestock, and land as a result of his actions. The family had to make adjustments after becoming suddenly penniless. Nelson's mother was obliged to move him north to her small village of Qunu, where they slept on straw mats in a small house.

Nelson will always remember his stay in the small community fondly, despite how modest life was there. He spent his days caring to the animals and playing hide-and-seek with the other village youngsters. There was little awareness of the racist differences that pervaded South African culture here.

When Nelson was nine years old, though, things changed radically. His father had died of lung disease, according to the news. Gadla was good friends with Chief Jongintaba, the Thembu people's regent, until his death. He'd requested Jongintaba to accept Nelson into his home and raise him like a son when he realized his days were few. Jongintaba agreed with him. When Nelson's father died, he left his mother's town to join the regent's family, which was 10 miles distant. He'd never again live with his mum.

He'd never forget his first day at the regent's palace. It was known as the "Great Place" throughout the city, and it was the most spectacular structure he'd ever seen. The property consisted of two brick homes encircled by seven massive huts. Everything was painted white, which reflected brilliantly in the bright Transkei sun. It had magnificent gardens in the front and back, as well as apple trees, calves, and hundreds of sheep in the fields. The regent even had his own car, a high-powered Ford V8.

Chief Jongintaba kept his word and treated Nelson like a son. He was quickly adopted into the royal household and groomed to be a counselor to the regent's eldest child, Justice.

Nelson learnt how to be an excellent leader at the chief's house. Thembu clan members would come from all throughout Thembuland to settle disagreements, which the regent would carefully listen to. Nelson was enthralled by the way he handled their claims. He wasn't just a good listener; he also welcomed criticism. And, like a wise shepherd, the regent guided his flock from behind, giving the impression that they had reached their own conclusions.

Nelson would later put these same ideals into practice when it came time for him to be a leader.

When Nelson and Justice turned sixteen, they traveled to a secluded valley with other young people from the area to participate in an important rite of passage, as per Xhosa culture. It signifies the shift from boyhood to adulthood, and when they returned to their homestead, they were welcomed as adults and deemed capable of leading the Thembu people.

The regent, however, wanted his boys to obtain some work experience before they settled into life as adults at the royal house, so he sent them to college. Nelson's goals would grow in this place.

He was introduced to many new things at college, including modern toilets, hot-water showers, and toilet soap. He also made some of his first non-Thembu friends and learned, to to his surprise, that some of his teachers were married to people from other clans.

But most crucially, it was here that he first learned about the African National Congress, or ANC. The African National Congress (ANC) was an organization aimed to unite African peoples against European authority and removing racist policies and laws that prevented them from owning land, voting, or freely traveling within their own country. Nelson was captivated by the ANC's ideology even if he didn't join when he was in college. They posed a challenge to the Thembu-centric environment he'd grown up in. These thoughts will eventually prove to be the most influential in his life.

Justice and Nelson were called home after six years of college. The regent had prepared a surprise for his two sons: he had arranged for them to marry. They were to marry right away. The regent was unconcerned about the situation. Justice and Nelson were taken aback. They didn't want to marry and settle down at the palace, no matter how much they admired the regent. They weren't ready to give up the wider world that college had brought them to.

As a result, they determined that the only option was to flee. They chose Johannesburg, a massive city and major urban center to the north of Thembuland. It was South Africa's economic hub, and people were flocking from all over the country to work in the mines that surrounded the city.

Despite the fact that Black South Africans were not allowed to travel outside of their home regions without specific permits, Justice and Nelson were able to dupe a regent's buddy into drafting certain documents. Then, in 1941, they managed to flee in the middle of the night. Nelson would not return to Thembuland for another nearly fifty years.

Chapter 2:

As they approached the enormous city of Johannesburg, Nelson and Justice were stunned by what they saw. All they could see in the distance was a massive blanket of electric lights. A bustling world lay ahead of them, which they couldn't begin to imagine.

Nelson's ambition was to use his schooling as a clerk in the mines, and he had some understanding of the city. The regent, on the other hand, had sent word to the management, saying, "Don't hire my guys." Return them to you. As a result, Nelson and Justice were obliged to seek employment elsewhere.

Nelson was introduced to Walter Sisulu by a cousin. Sisulu was running a modest real estate office in Johannesburg at the time, with the goal of assisting Black South Africans in finding housing in the city. He became one of Nelson's closest friends, and the two would spend decades imprisoned on Robben Island together.

Nelson was hired as a legal clerk when Sisulu introduced him to a lawyer he knew named Lazar Sidelsky.

Sidelsky was a liberal-minded individual, and his firm handled matters for both black and white South Africans. He enjoyed working at the law business. Nelson's aptitude was obvious to him, and he urged him to study law in the hopes of one day opening his own practice. He also advised Nelson to stay away from politics, which he thought was sensible counsel.

However, as Nelson became more aware of the discrimination suffered by Black people in Johannesburg, this became increasingly difficult. Nelson was persuaded to join the ANC by friends like Walter Sisulu, who were becoming involved in the fight for full citizenship rights for Black South Africans.

As a result, he began attending local meetings and finally became an ANC member. He founded the Youth League, a younger, more militant arm of the ANC, with a group of pals. They collaborated on a manifesto that called on all South African ethnic groups to come together and focus their combined efforts on eradicating white supremacy.

Nelson was having a great time at the time. He found time to woo a young woman from the Transkei whom he'd met at Sisulu's residence while working at the firm, studying law, and managing the Youth League. Evelyn was her name, and they married in 1945.

The Youth League had high aspirations for South Africa's future. There seemed to be a sense of change in the air. Colonial regimes were crumbling all across the world in the aftermath of World War II, and formerly oppressed people were taking the lead in creating their countries' destiny.

South Africa, on the other hand, was about to embark on a completely different route.

In 1948, white South Africans had a general election, in which the ultra-racist National Party (or NP) gained a landslide win in a surprising turn of events.

The Afrikaner community, which was predominantly derived from Dutch pioneers as opposed to those with British or other European backgrounds, backed the NP. Many of the Party's top figures were Nazi sympathizers who opposed South Africa's entry into the war on the side of the Allies and were inspired by Hitler's pseudo-scientific approach to supposed "racial difference." They ran on a platform of "apartheid," which means "separation," with the goal of preserving the white minority's control through a blanket regime of racial legislation.

Apartheid, on the other hand, was not a novel concept. There have been laws restricting Black people's freedoms on the books since the 1800s. Apartheid, on the other hand, proposed expanding and enshrining these prohibitions in unprecedented ways.

The National Party quickly passed a set of new regulations. For example, the Population Registration Act required all South Africans to have race-specific identification cards. The Group Zones Act mandated that people of different races live in separate areas. Other laws were passed prohibiting mixed marriages, prohibiting sex between races, segregating all public facilities, and outlawing all forms of protest and dissent. This, according to the National Party, was merely the beginning.

People were horrified all around South Africa. Oliver Tambo, a friend and fellow Youth League leader of Nelson Mandela, was less astonished in Johannesburg: "Now we will know exactly who our opponents are," he declared. The Youth League got to work on a response.

The African National Congress (ANC) has always believed in working within the law to bring about change in South Africa. However, apartheid made this impossible. Mandela's Youth League began lobbying the ANC to adopt a nonviolent resistance program modeled by Gandhi's in India. The party's leadership eventually agreed.

Thirty-three Black South Africans entered a "Whites Only" railway station in Port Elizabeth on June 26, 1952. They staged this protest while singing freedom songs, demonstrating a nonviolent attitude. They were all apprehended and imprisoned. This was the start of the epic Defiance Campaign, which engulfed the country for the next five months, with Mandela playing a key part in its organization and execution.

Thousands of Black people participated in the Defiance Campaign around the country, crossing segregated zones, burning pass books, and organizing strikes. Thousands of South African Indians, as well as the mixed population labeled "Coloureds" by the government, felt the same way. This was a setback for the apartheid regime's belief that dividing the country's non-white people by granting various races different privileges was a good way to do so. In fact, the exact reverse happened. Following the Defiance Campaign, the ANC's membership grew from 20,000 to 100,000, with people representing all of the designated races.

The government retaliated by enacting a slew of new apartheid laws, granting it the authority to declare martial law, jail people without charge, and impose corporal punishment in prison. It also selected a new principal target: Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC).

Chapter 3:

Mandela's activity exploded during the next decade. He founded Mandela and Tambo, a law business, with his friend and fellow freedom warrior Oliver Tambo. Theirs was South Africa's only Black-owned law office, and it specialized in cases of police brutality.

Meanwhile, Mandela had risen to prominence within the African National Congress (ANC) and was more determined than ever to overturn apartheid government. He was the government's public-enemy number one after the Defiance Campaign, and he'd spend the rest of his days being pursued by the authorities at every opportunity.

The government's first strategy was to implement a "bans" system. A ban was a legal order that prohibited you from participating in group activities, attending public events, or traveling in any way. It even stated that you were not permitted to attend your child's birthday parties. A ban's violation resulted in incarceration.

As a result of the Defiance Campaign, Mandela was sentenced to his first of several lifetime bans. He was permitted to practice law, but he was not permitted to attend public gatherings.

Despite this, he was adamant on not slowing down. He was, in reality, organizing the ANC's latest anti-apartheid strike behind closed doors. This action would create international headlines.

A crowd of 3,000 people gathered in Johannesburg's Soweto neighborhood in June 1955 to hear a reading. It wasn't any ordinary reading. It was a reading of the Freedom Charter, a document that had been in the works for many years. From the outside of the crowd, Mandela, who had played a key role in its establishment, gazed on triumphantly. He'd disguised himself as a milkman to avoid his latest restriction.

The Freedom Charter was a revolutionary document: it was produced in secret councils around the country as a constitution for a post-apartheid South Africa. It called for a complete overhaul of the government, including granting everyone the ability to vote and sharing land evenly among all citizens.

The apartheid administration realized how dangerous the Charter was to its control since it gave voice to the disenfranchised 80 percent of the population. Despite historical and ethnic divisions, the non-white majority had banded together to articulate a different vision for their country. In the process, they'd captured the attention of the entire world.

Rather than listening to what they had to say, the National Party chose violence as a response. A knock at the door roused Nelson Mandela six months after the Freedom Charter was unveiled. Outside, security personnel were stationed. They charged him with high treason and arrested him.

He would be entangled in judicial proceedings for the next five years, along with 156 other ANC officials, in what became known as the Treason Trial. The government claimed that when preparing the Freedom Charter, Mandela advocated for the state's violent overthrow. The authorities claimed that this was technically treason. Treason was punishable by death.

The state intended to make the trial as expensive and time-consuming as possible, knowing that the ANC's activities would be curtailed while it faced such serious charges. One of the court's numerous ruses was to relocate the trial from Johannesburg, where the defendants and their supporters resided, to Pretoria, the National Party's capital, which is 45 minutes away. The defendants commuted back and forth between the two cities nearly every day for over five years.

Mandela struggled to find time for his family in these circumstances. Evelyn declared her separation from him in 1955, after ten years of marriage.

However, he met Winnie, a social worker, not long after. They instantly fell in love and decided to marry in 1958.

Winnie's father was worried about her new husband in the midst of the trial. He stood up to give a speech during their wedding. He told Winnie that, while Nelson clearly loved her, he would be as devoted to the struggle, pointing to the uninvited security personnel on the outskirts of the celebration. Winnie was aware of the situation. She was marrying the struggle when she married Nelson.

In the meantime, violence in South Africa was on the rise. The government had begun a program of forcible evictions of Black communities in order to make way for white settlers on valuable urban property. Millions of black South Africans were transferred to "Bantustans," a new type of territory created by the National Party administration specifically for them.

Tensions erupted in Sharpeville, a tiny community outside of Johannesburg, in 1959. Thousands of peaceful demonstrators had assembled at a police station to protest the increasingly restrictive pass requirements. Police opened fire on them unexpectedly and without warning. Sixty-nine demonstrators, 29 of them were students, were killed after the smoke cleared. As they attempted to flee, the majority of them were shot in the back.

The rest of the globe was angry in sympathy with the country's Black population. The Sharpeville Massacre claimed the lives of around 249 individuals. With the increased worldwide attention, the apartheid authorities shifted responsibility for the massacre, blaming the violence on communists. They responded by launching a new crackdown. As riots erupted across the country, the National Party announced a State of Emergency, giving itself broad powers to punish dissent. Over 18,000 people were detained in mass arrests, and any connection or support for the African National Congress (ANC) was prohibited.

Nelson Mandela and his co-defendants were also arrested, despite the fact that they had not been charged with anything. They were held in a cramped cell with no blankets, toilets, or toilet paper, and minimal food. When they were liberated a few months later, they all agreed that the battle had entered a new phase.

Chapter 4:

The Treason Trial was coming to an end by 1961. The judge surprised everyone by returning a "not guilty" judgment. The state's evidence was too thin, even for the biased judges: the Freedom Charter was a manifesto for freedom, not a call for violence.

However, Mandela was well aware that this was only a short reprieve. With the ANC now classified as a terrorist organization, the government might use any excuse to detain him. He made the decision to go underground at this point.

Mandela went unnoticed for the next year and a half, travelling across the country in stealth. While security agents searched high and low for him, he began to form a new ANC wing called as Umkhonto we Sizwe - the "Spear of the Nation." The ANC's commitment to nonviolence came to an end with the formation of this faction.

Mandela remarked that the oppressors had defined the parameters of the conflict. The only way to deal with violence was to use force.

Mandela's prominence grew in exile as more individuals spoke out in support of his struggle. However, life was not easy. He didn't get to see Winnie or the two daughters she'd given birth to recently. Despite this, he persisted.

In the meantime, the ANC leadership had devised a two-pronged reaction to the apartheid administration. They began by planning a series of sabotage operations against state security forces' infrastructure, machinery, and power plants. The purpose was not to kill people, but to inflict long-term economic damage.

Second, they started planning the formation of a liberating force. The ANC believed that in the long run, they needed to be able to fight back against South Africa's security state. As a result, in 1962, Mandela smuggled out of the country and embarked on a fundraising trip across Africa. It was his first trip outside of his homeland, and these excursions to places where Black people lived freely, moved freely, and even became heads of state inspired him greatly.

However, Mandela was identified before the preparations could be put into action. South African authorities had received a tip concerning his whereabouts from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As a result, his car was encircled as he drove from a conference in Durban to see Winnie in Johannesburg. Mandela was apprehended and sent to a Johannesburg prison for the second time. Soon after, he was charged with instigating strikes and unlawfully fleeing the country. He was sentenced to five years in prison for this.

However, after a year in prison, the authorities discovered documents demonstrating that the ANC had begun planning for a liberation force. As a result, Mandela and the ANC's leadership were put on trial once more. They might face the death penalty if convicted.

Mandela refused to defend himself on this occasion. He reasoned that doing so would merely legitimize an inequitable process. Instead, he appeared in front of the court and read a statement. He'd been working on it for months, and reading it out loud took him three hours. Despite the length of the address, the court was transfixed as Mandela delivered one of the most renowned speeches of all time: "I Am Prepared to Die."

He expressed his moral arguments for being a freedom warrior in the speech. He talked about the ANC's past, its aims for a non-racial democracy, and the harsh treatment it had endured since apartheid began. It was a moving and thought-provoking speech.

Following that, as the world awaited the judgement, additional organizations and institutions expressed their support for this inspiring leader. Mandela was elected president of the University of London Students' Council in his absence in London. The United Nations Security Council voted to put a stop to the trial immediately and release the accused.

Nelson Mandela had made up his mind to die. He was proud of his actions and had no intention of appealing if he was sentenced to death. However, he was taken aback when the verdict was delivered. He was instead sentenced to life in prison on June 12, 1964.

He was taken on a government jet and flown to Cape Town the next day. From there, he was transported by boat to Robben Island, a high-security prison where he and his fellow ANC members would be held. He expected to spend the rest of his life there.

Chapter 5:

Robben Island was a difficult place to live. The quarters were damp, and the convicts slept on straw mats. The only toilet was a ten-inch pail with a lid on top, and there was no running water.

Prisoners were only allowed to write and receive one letter every six months, limiting their contact with the outside world. Every phrase was reviewed by censors, who removed any political material. As a result, Winnie's letters frequently arrived in shreds.

The detainees were forced to labor in a quarry under the watchful eye of harsh guards. The ANC group was held apart from the rest of the island's inmates. Mandela would later say that this was one of the state's most egregious errors. Despite the fact that ANC leaders were not supposed to communicate or talk to one another, they found ways to support one another. They developed an unshakable friendship over time. Soon, they were organizing prison strikes and rallies, and Mandela was providing free legal services to other convicts.

They even scored some minor victories: On Robben Island, one of Mandela's greatest victories was persuading prison authorities to allow Black detainees to wear long pants rather than shorts. Pants were previously exclusively available to Indian and Coloured detainees, a minor source of humiliation for Black inmates in this apartheid-era prison.

Years have passed. Mandela was barred from attending the funerals of his mother and eldest son Thembi, both of whom had died in a vehicle accident.

Meanwhile, tensions in the country continued to escalate outside the jail walls. A major student demonstration took occurred in 1976 in Soweto, the township where the Freedom Charter was first unveiled. The police responded with deadly violence, as they had done in Sharpeville years previously, killing between 200 and 700 youngsters.

The entire globe was shocked. Apartheid's regime came under increasing international criticism, with many organizations calling for boycotts of South African goods and other governments imposing punitive penalties. Mandela's old buddy and legal partner Oliver Tambo was now in charge of the ANC. He was now living in exile in another country, and he continued to agitate for change from there. A "Free Mandela" campaign was established, and it quickly gained traction around the world.

The apartheid administration remained in power despite the help of allies such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The situation on Robben Island began to improve slightly in the 1970s. Wives were now allowed to visit for more than fifteen minutes, and Mandela was able to see his children for the first time in a decade. Winnie was now allowed to send photos, and she was finally allowed to read newspapers and outside books after years of being barred.

Robben Island became known as "the University" as a result of the amount of learning that took place there. Mandela was in the forefront of the movement, organizing a series of talks for the detainees. He himself taught a political economy course. He also became a keen gardener, planting dozens of plants in a small space in the jail yard.

Mandela received an unexpected offer at the end of the 1970s. The minister of prisons paid a visit to Robben Island and told him that if he acknowledged the validity of the Bantustan governments, he may be released. It didn't take long for Mandela to respond. Certainly not. He would never recognize the apartheid state's legitimacy.

However, a new phase had begun. The administration had clearly grasped the moral and financial costs of keeping Mandela imprisoned.

The ANC leaders were moved from Robben Island to a newer, nicer prison in a Cape Town suburb in 1982. They began a long series of negotiations with the government here. Year every year, the National Party government tried to make a deal with him: if he denounced the ANC as a terrorist group, he could be released. Mandela, of course, refused. Apartheid had to be abolished and all South Africans given equal citizenship rights if they wanted him to walk free.

Then the unexpected happened in 1990. F.W. de Klerk was elected president of South Africa, and while he wasn't a liberal, he saw that apartheid had no political future in the country. The pressure from all over the world had become too much.

As a result, in an unexpected turn of events, de Klerk agreed to meet with Mandela to discuss an unconditional release. Mandela stuck to his guns. Apartheid had to be abolished, and the ANC had to be legalized. Finally, de Klerk agreed. Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990, after 27 years in jail.

The streets of Cape Town were alive with anticipation and excitement the day he stepped free, with Winnie by his side. The ANC had hired a driver to transport Mandela to City Hall, but the vehicle was suffocated by the masses. He took over three hours to get to the top of the podium. He lifted his fist in the freedom-fighter salute as he finally took the stage, old and feeble following a recent bout of TB. He screamed, "Amandla!" The crowd responded with a resounding “Ngawethu.” “Power! "To the masses!"

The ANC and the National Party negotiated about South Africa's future during the next year. There was an agreement on a transition phase, with the first free elections taking place in 1994.

After a ferocious campaign, Mandela cast his first ballot, at the age of seventy-five, on April 27. On his ballot, he naturally checked the ANC. Millions of other South Africans felt the same way. When the votes were counted, the ANC came out on top, which meant that Nelson Mandela, the party's leader, had been elected president - a position he would retain for the next five years. With this, South Africa entered a new era.

Mandela was able to realize a lifelong dream of visiting the world after his release from jail - something he had been banned to do as a Black man in South Africa. Crowds hailed him wherever he went now that he is a global icon. He became accustomed to mingling with world leaders, posing for photographs, and signing signatures.

But there was one meeting in particular that stood out. Mandela had recently returned from his first journey to America, where he had joined George Bush Sr. in a joint session of Congress. Following that, he'd travel to Europe, where he'd meet Margaret Thatcher. However, once the jet passed Canada, it had to come to a halt. It was running out of gas. As a result, the plane landed in Goose Bay, a remote part of the Arctic Circle. Mandela opted to get some fresh air while waiting on the tarmac.

He noticed a bunch of Inuit youngsters in the distance. The Inuit, like the South Africans, had been subjected to years of colonial tyranny. Inuit students were forced to attend oppressive schools until the 1990s, where they were beaten, abused, and deprived of their culture.

The children began cheering as Mandela neared. One of them had a sign in his hand. It exclaimed, "Viva ANC!" Mandela was taken aback. How did these kids figure out who he was? He'd inspired a new generation of freedom fighters on the other side of the globe, well beyond his wildest dreams. It was a deep and sobering epiphany, and it was a monument to his unwavering commitment to liberty.

You’ve reached the end of this Bedtime Biography. Thank you for reading. Why not pause reading now so you can stay in a relaxed state? And if you’re off to bed now, I wish you a good night’s sleep.