Long Walk to Freedom

“I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” 

From his guardian, the regent Jongintaba, Mandela learned that leadership was not about coercion or domination. A leader must often subordinate his or her personal convictions to the group consensus.

“This was an all too typical South African story. It was not lack of ability that limited my people, but lack of opportunity.” 

Here, Mandela remembers an early schoolmate, Mathona. She was a brilliant pupil who was unable to rise to her potential because of the economic and political marginalization of Africans.

“But seeing Frank and his wife began to undermine my parochialism and loosen the hold of the tribalism that still imprisoned me. I began to sense my identity as an African, not just a Thembu or even a Xhosa.” 

Much of Mandela’s reminiscences of his childhood concern his growing sense of commonality with other people. At this stage, he was shedding his tribal loyalties and seeing the common interest of all African peoples. This change in consciousness prepared him to learn the tenets of Africanism from Gaur Radebe and Anton Lembede.