Nelson Mandela: Why He Rose Up

Great Man Essay

Nelson Mandela is judged to be one of the greatest political leaders of the modern age. Among is many accomplishments are the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for his life long struggle with racial oppression in South Africa, where in the he end he was able to creat a democracy. Which in the end led to his presidency after the first multiracial election in South Africa. I believe it was his social environment, filled with racism and oppression that led him to do great things.
There was little in Nelson Mandela's early life to indicate that he would become a leader of an independence movement and eventually president of his country. He was born Rolihlahla Mandela in rural South Africa in the tiny village of Mvezo, on the banks of the Mbashe River in the province of Transkei. "Rolihlahla" in the language of Xhosa literally means "pulling the branch of a tree," but more commonly means "troublemaker." The oppression and segragation of everyday life, combined with the injustices he witnessed in the Chiefs court made him strive to become a lawyer.
Nelson helped create the ANC, a small group of young Africans joined together and called themselves the African National Congress Youth League. Their goal was to transform the ANC into a mass grassroots movement, drawing its strength from millions of rural peasants and working people who had no voice under the current apartheid government. In 1949, the ANC officially adopted the Youth League's methods of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-cooperation with policy goals of full citizenship, redistribution of land, trade union rights, and free and compulsory education for all children. If it had not been for the oppression of the African people under the current apartheid system of government then Nelson would have never have helped create the ANC, and never had begun his political career in South Africa.
For 20 years, Mandela directed a campaign of peaceful, non-violent defiance against the South African...