Nelson Mandela: from prison to president and the end of apartheid

In November 2025, US President Donald Trump announced that South Africa would not be invited to the 2026 G20 summit, set for December in Miami. It was the first time a member had been excluded from the group. Among the reasons Trump cited were accusations of violence against white farmers, which the South African government denies.

The episode brought an old question back into the news: how did South Africa leave a system of racial segregation without a civil war? The answer runs through Nelson Mandela.

The boy from Mvezo

Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo, in the country's southeast. He was Xhosa, from a family connected to the Thembu royal house. The name Nelson was given to him by a teacher at school, as was common at the time.

He studied at the University of Fort Hare, one of the few open to black students, and then law in Johannesburg. In 1944, he helped found the Youth League of the African National Congress, the ANC. In 1953, he and Oliver Tambo opened Mandela and Tambo, one of the first law firms run by black South Africans.

What apartheid was

In 1948, the National Party, backed mainly by the Afrikaner minority of Dutch descent, came to power and turned racial discrimination into a legal system. Apartheid, which means "separateness" in Afrikaans, classified every person by race.

That classification decided where people could live, study and work and whom they could marry. Black people had to carry passes to move around cities and had no national vote.

Mandela took part in the 1952 Defiance Campaign, which encouraged civil disobedience against the regime's laws. On March 21, 1960, police opened fire on protesters at Sharpeville and killed 69 people. The ANC was banned.

From armed struggle to prison

After Sharpeville, Mandela concluded that peaceful protest was not enough. In 1961, he co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, the "Spear of the Nation", an armed wing linked to the ANC that ran a sabotage campaign against government installations.

Arrested in 1962, he was put on trial with other leaders in the Rivonia Trial. In court, he gave a three-hour speech that ended by saying he was prepared to die for the ideal of a democratic society. The prosecution asked for the death penalty. On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison.

He spent 18 years in the prison on Robben Island, off Cape Town, where he broke rocks and worked in a lime quarry. He was later moved to Pollsmoor Prison, in 1982, and Victor Verster Prison, in 1988. In all, he spent 27 years behind bars.

The negotiation

By the 1980s, the regime was isolated. There were international sanctions, sporting and cultural boycotts, uprisings in black townships and a struggling economy. While still in prison, Mandela began secret talks with members of the government.

On February 2, 1990, President F. W. de Klerk announced that the ANC would be legalized. Nine days later, on February 11, Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison holding his wife Winnie's hand, a scene broadcast live around the world.

The negotiations took four years and were marked by violence. In 1993, the assassination of communist leader Chris Hani nearly pushed the country into chaos. Mandela went on television to call for calm. That same year, he and De Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

President of reconciliation

On April 27, 1994, South Africans of all races voted together for the first time. The ANC won, and Mandela was sworn in on May 10, at age 75, as the country's first black president.

He formed a government of national unity with the National Party and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to investigate crimes committed by both the regime and the ANC. At the 1995 Rugby World Cup, he wore the jersey of the national team, a symbol of the white minority, and handed the trophy to the winning captain.

He served a single term and left office in 1999.

A contested legacy

Mandela died on December 5, 2013, at age 95. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff attended the funeral with four former Brazilian presidents.

His legacy is both celebrated and questioned. South African democracy has survived, but the country remains among the most unequal in the world, and some young black South Africans criticize the transition for leaving land and wealth concentrated in white hands. On the other side, Afrikaner groups say they face discrimination in today's South Africa, an argument that has found an echo in the Trump administration.

Until 2008, Mandela appeared on US terrorism watch lists because of the ANC's armed struggle. The man once treated as a terrorist became, within a few decades, one of the world's best-known symbols of reconciliation.

Quick questions

Why was Nelson Mandela imprisoned?

For leading the struggle against apartheid, including a sabotage campaign by the ANC's armed wing. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1964 at the Rivonia Trial.

How long was Mandela in prison?

27 years, from 1962 to 1990, 18 of them on Robben Island.

When was Mandela president of South Africa?

From May 10, 1994, to 1999. He was the country's first black president and served a single term.

What was apartheid?

It was South Africa's official system of racial segregation, from 1948 to the early 1990s, which separated the population by race and denied black people the vote.

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Nelson Mandela: 27 years in prison and the transition that avoided civil war