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Nelson Mandela had three wives: Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1944–58); Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (1958–96), who was also a noteworthy anti-apartheid champion; and Graça Machel (1998–2013), who was the widow of Samora Machel, former president of Mozambique (1975–86), and was Mandela’s wife at the time of his death in 2013.
- Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela had three wives: Evelyn Ntoko Mase (1944–58);...
- Nelson Mandela
Jul 18, 1998 · Nelson Mandela marries Graça Machel on his 80th birthday. 18 July 1998. Nelson Mandela first married in 1944. He and his wife Evelyn had 2 children and divorced in 1957. A year later, he married Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Their marriage survived his 27 years in prison, but ended in divorce in 1996.
Mandela's second wife was the social worker Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, whom he married in June 1958. [435] They divorced in March 1996. [436] Mandela married his third wife, Graça Machel, on his 80th birthday in July 1998. [437]
On June 14, 1958, three months after his divorce from Evelyn, Nelson married Winnie Madikizela. She was born to a Xhosa royal family in Mbhongweni, Bizana, and given the name Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela.
- Overview
- Early life and work
- Underground activity and the Rivonia Trial
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, also known as Madiba, was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa; the name Nelson was later added by one of his teachers. His father, the chief of the Madiba clan of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people, died when Nelson was still young, and he was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Although Nelson had a claim to the chieftainship, he renounced it in order to become a lawyer.
Read more below: Early life and work
Tembu
Read more about the Tembu people.
When did Nelson Mandela die?
Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013, in Johannesburg. He was 95 years old. After his death was announced, his life was remembered and celebrated in South Africa as well as around the world. Numerous memorial services were held, including one by the South African government on December 10. He was laid to rest at Qunu, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, on December 15.
Nelson Mandela was the son of Chief Henry Mandela of the Madiba clan of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. After his father’s death, young Nelson was raised by Jongintaba, the regent of the Tembu. Nelson renounced his claim to the chieftainship to become a lawyer. He attended South African Native College (later the University of Fort Hare) and studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand; he later passed the qualification exam to become a lawyer. In 1944 he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a Black-liberation group, and became a leader of its Youth League. That same year he met and married Evelyn Ntoko Mase. Mandela subsequently held other ANC leadership positions, through which he helped revitalize the organization and oppose the apartheid policies of the ruling National Party.
In 1952 in Johannesburg, with fellow ANC leader Oliver Tambo, Mandela established South Africa’s first Black law practice, specializing in cases resulting from the post-1948 apartheid legislation. Also that year, Mandela played an important role in launching a campaign of defiance against South Africa’s pass laws, which required nonwhites to carry documents (known as passes, pass books, or reference books) authorizing their presence in areas that the government deemed “restricted” (i.e., generally reserved for the white population). He traveled throughout the country as part of the campaign, trying to build support for nonviolent means of protest against the discriminatory laws. In 1955 he was involved in drafting the Freedom Charter, a document calling for nonracial social democracy in South Africa.
Mandela’s antiapartheid activism made him a frequent target of the authorities. Starting in 1952, he was intermittently banned (severely restricted in travel, association, and speech). In December 1956 he was arrested with more than 100 other people on charges of treason that were designed to harass antiapartheid activists. Mandela went on trial that same year and eventually was acquitted in 1961. During the extended court proceedings, he divorced his first wife and married Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela).
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After the massacre of unarmed Black South Africans by police forces at Sharpeville in 1960 and the subsequent banning of the ANC, Mandela abandoned his nonviolent stance and began advocating acts of sabotage against the South African regime. He went underground (during which time he became known as the Black Pimpernel for his ability to evade capture) and was one of the founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC. In 1962 he went to Algeria for training in guerrilla warfare and sabotage, returning to South Africa later that year. On August 5, shortly after his return, Mandela was arrested at a road block in Natal; he was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.
In October 1963 the imprisoned Mandela and several other men were tried for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy in the infamous Rivonia Trial, named after a fashionable suburb of Johannesburg where raiding police had discovered quantities of arms and equipment at the headquarters of the underground Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela’s speech from the dock, in which he admitted the truth of some of the charges made against him, was a classic defense of liberty and defiance of tyranny. (His speech garnered international attention and acclaim and was published later that year as I Am Prepared to Die.) On June 12, 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, narrowly escaping the death penalty.
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Jul 19, 1998 · South African President Nelson Mandela has married his long-term companion, 52-year-old Graca Machel on his 80th birthday. BBC News' Jeremy Vine on a double celebration Deputy President...
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Jun 8, 2013 · In 1958, Mr Mandela married Winnie Madikizela, who was later to take an active role in the campaign to free her husband from prison. The ANC was outlawed in 1960 and Mr Mandela went underground.
