Long Walk to Freedom

In 1957, women across the country, led by the ANC Women’s League, vigorously protest the imposition of the pass system. Winnie resolves to participate in the protests and gets arrested. Mandela is proud of his wife, though he warns her that she will lose her government job. The arrest of thousands of activists swells the jails, and the women endure crowded conditions for several weeks before being bailed out. In February the next year, Winnie gives birth to a daughter named Zenani.

Formal proceedings for the treason trial begin in August 1958. The state moves the venue to Pretoria, an NP stronghold more than 30 miles from Johannesburg. The defense team makes a bold gamble of asking two of the three appointed judges to recuse themselves. One, Judge Ludorf, agrees to withdraw, but the other, Judge Rumpff, declines and assures the defense of his ability to be impartial. Ludorf is replaced by Judge Bekker, who the defense team considers far more friendly.

The defense next attempts to contest the indictment, arguing that the charges lack precision and the government has no proof that the defendants ever intended to act violently. The three judges agree and quickly dismiss one of the charges. The legal sparring continues until, by mid-1959, there are now only 30 defendants, including Mandela. They are now being indicted specifically for the intention of planning to violently overthrow the South African government. 

On April 6, 1959, the anniversary of Jan Van Riebeeck’s landing at the cape, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) is launched. The group was inspired by the rhetoric of Anton Lembede and A.P. Mda, old friends of Mandela. Among its members are other friends of Mandela, such as Potlako Leballo, Peter Raboroko, Zephania Mothopeng, and Gaur Radebe.

The PAC disagrees with the ANC’s explicit non-racialist policy and instead desires a “government of the African by the Africans and for the Africans” (227). Mandela notes that Africanists within the ANC were becoming increasingly discontent and this split was somewhat inevitable. He believes many who joined the PAC did so out of personal grudges and frustrations. Mandela disapproves of this and asserts that “to be a freedom fighter one must suppress many of the personal feelings that make one feel like a separate individual rather than part of a mass movement” (228). 

He also disapproves of the PAC’s overpromising because, for example, the group claims it will liberate South Africa in three years. Because the PAC is explicitly anticommunist, however, it receives fawning coverage in Western media and is promoted by the U.S. State Department. Despite all this, Mandela hopes to draw PAC members into coordinated actions with the ANC and its allies.

In 1959, the government passes the Promotion of Bantu Self Government Act, creating eight bantustans. All Africans are assigned citizenship to one of the bantustans and do not possess citizenship rights outside of it. Mass resistance is ruthlessly suppressed, and chiefs within the bantustans are divided between collaborating with the government and resisting it.

On August 3, 1959, the criminal proceedings of the treason trial finally begin. During the slow process of entering evidence against the defendants, the prosecutor abruptly dies; a new one, Advocate De Vos, is appointed. Following the entry of evidence, witnesses are called, but the defense often deflates their claims.

The defense calls its own witnesses, including Chief Luthuli, who eloquently explain that the ANC’s political philosophy is not what the government claims. But, Luthuli’s testimony is interrupted on March 21, 1960, when the country is rocked by crisis.

That day, the PAC launches an anti-pass campaign to compete with one the ANC planned to begin 10 days later. In Sharpeville, a small township south of Johannesburg, several thousand PAC demonstrators surround the police station. The police open fire, killing 69 people.

The Sharpsville massacre brings widespread international condemnation of South Africa’s regime for the first time, and the PAC is hailed as the leader of the country’s liberation struggle. The ANC swings into response and quickly organizes countrywide protests. The government responds by declaring martial law.

On March 30, Mandela is detained in the middle of the night along with many of his compatriots. They are housed in deplorable conditions and threatened when they complain. The following night, the government formally arrests the detainees under the State of Emergency. Shortly thereafter, they are brought back to Pretoria and housed in the local prison to resume the treason trial.

The government’s endemic ineptitude results in a happy accident when, during this prisoner shuffling, a guard unintentionally allows Wilton Mkwayi to go free. Mkwayi escapes the country two months later to serve as an important international representative of the ANC. The ANC and PAC are declared illegal on April 8.

In this chapter, Mandela details several ways in which apartheid principles resulted in absurdity during the prisoners’ detention. As he puts it: “When the proverbial inflexibility of red tape is combined with the petty small-mindedness of racism, the result can be mind-boggling” (244).

During the trial, Mandela manages the affairs of his law office on the weekends while escorted by a Sergeant Kruger. Oliver Tambo left the country ahead of the State of Emergency, so Mandela must run the office alone. Despite Kruger’s position in the apartheid regime, he treats Mandela with consideration. Mandela sees opportunities to escape but finds he cannot take advantage of Kruger’s generosity towards him. 

In protest of travel restrictions form the State of Emergency, the defense attorneys withdraw from the case, leaving the defendants to mount their own defense. They seek to delay the trial until the State of Emergency is lifted, so each of the defendants calls the others to the stand as witnesses. Theoretically, the number of permutations would allow them to stall the trial indefinitely.

Mandela notes in this chapter that, during his visits to the women prisoners, the white female guards had never known an educated, confident African man before. Seeing him discuss the trial with his white, female codefendants, the guards’ racist assumptions were challenged.

The Emergency is finally lifted on August 31, 1960. The defendants return to their homes for the remainder of the trial. In September 1960, the ANC National Executive Committee decides to go underground. Mandela and Tambo’s law office closes, but Mandela is still able to find work as a lawyer. In December 1960, Winnie gives birth to their second child, Zindziswa (Zindzi). 

In October 1960, an all-white referendum is held on whether to declare South Africa a republic and leave the British Commonwealth. The referendum narrowly passes.

On March 29, 1961 the treason trial ends when the three judges find the defendants not guilty. Despite the acquittal, Mandela does not regard the verdict as a vindication of the South African legal system. When he was younger, he had “an idealistic view of the law as a sword of justice,” but he now perceives the law as “a tool used by the ruling class to shape society in a way favorable to itself” (260). The state responds to its loss by escalating its violation of the rights of Africans and political dissidents.

Mandela plans to take advantage of the imminent expiration of his political ban. He intends to leave Johannesburg and speak at the All-in Conference in Pietermaritzburg. Meanwhile, the ANC National Working Committee decides on a strategy called the M-Plan: the organization’s leadership will go underground, traveling the country in disguise, organizing local cells, and making dramatic public appearances.

Neither Mandela nor Winnie look forward to him leaving their family and going on the run, but both know it is necessary for the struggle.

Mandela leaves for Pietermaritzburg immediately following the trial’s adjournment and addresses a crowd for the first time in five years. The conference calls for the government to hold a constitutional convention with representatives from all racial and ethnic communities. If no convention is held, a three-day stay-away is planned for May 29, 1961 to coincide with the South Africa independence celebrations. The government refuses the All-in Conference demands and prepares a new campaign of repression.