Gadla henry mphakanyiswa biography of christopher
•
•
South Africa Gateway
A timeline of the 95-year life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela – revolutionary, soldier, political prisoner, president of South Africa, statesman and global icon of social justice.
Street art in San Francisco shows Nelson Mandela addressing the massive crowd who greeted him on the Grand Parade as he gave his first speech, from a Cape Town city hall balcony, after his release on 11 February 1990 from 27 years in prison. (Julie Pimentel, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Jump to:
1910s
18 July 1918 – Nelson Mandela born in Mvezo, Eastern Cape province, South Africa. His mother, Nonqaphi Fanny Nosekeni, is one of four wives of his father, Mphakanyiswa Gadla Henry Mandela, a “chief by both blood and custom“.
His birth name is Rolihlahla. In isiXhosa it literally translates as “pulling the branch of a tree”. But colloquially, it means “troublemaker“.
1920s
1925 – Mandela begins primary school near his home village of Qunu. His teacher names him “Nelson”.
Nelson Mandela with his class at Healdtown College circa 1937 to 1938. Mandela is in the back row, fifth from right. (South African History Online)
In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote: “On the first day of sch
•
Nelson Mandela: Protester, Prisoner, Peacemaker 1918-2013
Posted by Alex Perry on Dec 27, 2013 in Articles | No Comments
Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, into the royal house of Thembu of the Madiba clan, in the village of Mvezo, which sits on a bare, rocky hill above a bend in the Mbashe River, a day’s walk from the town of Umtata in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. Though he didn’t believe names were destiny, Mandela acknowledged that “friends and relatives would ascribe to my birth name the many storms I have both caused and weathered.” In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, he relates how his father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, called him Rolihlahla, which translates from Xhosa literally as “pulling a branch off a tree” but more colloquially as “troublemaker.”
Mandela would go on to make enough trouble for apartheid South Africa that he was able to defeat it even from inside a prison cell. His lifetime of unyielding struggle and, later, his forgiveness of his enemies came to be regarded all but universally as one of the finest articulations ever of the human spirit. Not only did the awe he inspired help him overturn racism and make peace