A Young Man

  1. After running away, Mandela first started work as a night watchman for a mining company - but when the foreman discovered he was a runaway he was sacked.
  2. He then went to stay with a cousin, who introduced him to an African National Congress (ANC) activist called Walter Sisulu. The ANC was an organisation set up in 1912 to campaign for increased rights for black South Africans.
  3. Sisulu found Mandela a job with a law firm. This area of employment interested him and he started a BA in Law through a correspondence course with the University of South Africa.
  4. Whilst working at the law firm, Mandela became friends with a member of the ANC called Gaur Redebe. Redebe encouraged Nelson to join the ANC, and his first action was marching in support of a bus boycott against fare rises.
  5. During his time here, he was also visited by Jongintaba who forgave him for running away. A year late, the chief died, and Mandela returned to pay his respects, however he didn’t make it back in time for the funeral.
  6. Later that year, Mandela completed his law degree and decided that rather than became a privy councillor in Thembuland (where he had grown up alongside chief Jongintaba’s son) he would begin a career as a lawyer.
  7. Throughout this period, Mandela had become even firmer in his belief that everyone should be treated equally. He became more active in the ANC and was part of a delegation that visited the organisation’s president, suggesting that an ANC youth movement should be set up.
  8. Soon afterwards, the African National Congress Youth League was set up, and Mandela became a part of its executive committee.
  9. Although South Africa had always been a hotbed of inequality, things got significantly worse when in 1948 the severely racialist National Party came into power (after an election in which only whites were allowed to vote). They introduced new apartheid legislation which - rightly - angered the ANC.
  10. Because of this, Mandela and his executive colleagues from the ANC advocated more direct protest action, such as boycotts and strikes.