Today in History: Mandela letter from prison made public
Nelson Mandela spent his entire life leading up to, during, and even after being imprisoned fighting the Apartheid regime.
Nelson Mandela often exhausted all measures in his fight against the Apartheid regime, and even went so far as to smuggle a letter out of Robben Island Prison in 1980.
Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison.
He was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing and was forced to do hard labour in a quarry.
Once a year, he was allowed to meet with a visitor for 30 minutes, and once every six months he could write and receive a letter.
At first, he was only allowed to exchange letters with his family, and these letters were read and censored by prison officials.
Later he was allowed to write to friends and associates, but any writing of a political nature was forbidden.
With the help of fellow prisoners and his visitors, Mandela continued to smuggle out statements and letters to spark the continuing anti-apartheid movement.
A 500-page autobiography, manually miniaturised into 50 pages, was even smuggled out by a departing prisoner in 1976.
Four years later, the African National Congress (ANC) made public a statement by Nelson Mandela that he had written from the confinements of Robben Island and had smuggled out.
The message, smuggled out of Robben Island prison under great risk, read, “UNITE! MOBILISE! FIGHT ON! BETWEEN THE ANVIL OF UNITED MASS ACTION AND THE HAMMER OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE WE SHALL CRUSH APARTHEID!”
Through it all, Mandela’s resolve remained unbroken, and he led a movement of civil disobedience at the prison that coerced South African officials into drastically improving conditions on Robben Island.
In 1982, he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and in 1988 to a cottage, where he lived under house arrest.
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