At fort Hare, Mandela’s guardian tried to arrange a marriage for him. Mandela fled to Johannesburg to escape the arranged marriage and worked for a time as a guard at Crown Mines. At the mines, Mandela witnessed the true brutality of apartheid on non-whites in South Africa. Mandela was fired from his job as a guard at the Crown Mines, but luckily met Walter Sisulu, an estate agent who employed Mandela as a law clerk. Sisulu and Mandela become good friends. Sisulu was a member of the African National Congress and influenced Mandela greatly. Shortly after meeting Sisulu, Mandela joined the ANC. Mandela had graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree from Fort Hare and now wanted to enroll in a law degree at the University of Witwatersrand (or Wits) the premier English-Speaking University in South Africa. At Wits, Mandela had many problems with the racist lecturers, but at the same time he met Joe Slovo and his partner Ruth First, both white members of the South African Community Party (SACP) who were dedicated to fighting apartheid in South Africa. They introduced Mandela to many politically active whites. Eventually Mandela left Wits without his law degree and studied via correspondence at the University of South Africa and achieved his legal qualification. At Forte Hare, Mandela had met Oliver Tambo, and in 1952, they opened the first black legal service, providing free or low-cost legal counsel for many blacks who would otherwise have been without legal representation. ‘Mandela and Tambo’ was the name on the brass plate of Africa’s first black law firm. Mandela and Tambo spent every day dealing with the injustices of the apartheid state on poor blacks who had been arrested and/ or charged for minor breaches of the apartheid laws, including being on ‘whites only’ beaches or buses. In defending poor blacks, Mandela and Tambo met with the racist attitudes of the white legal system.
Mandela found himself fighting for the victims of police brutality, and the decisions of the racial Classification Board, where many people had their ‘colour’ determined by the court. the most influential political figure of this or any other era. The 1948 election saw the formal codification of segregation by the white-only government as they classified the population into three races and defined the rights of each. Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994, serving until 1999.
Through his hardships and jail time he
1956 the government arrested Nelson and another 150 activists charging with treason
1960 the south African government outlawed the National African Congress, Nelson then went underground to form the mkr formed after Sharpeville were 67 people were killed and over 180
