RALEIGH, N.C. – A majority of the American people know who the great Dr. Martin Luther King was, but most don’t know of another great leader of our time who played a huge role in the civil rights movement but did it thousands of miles away.
Have you guessed who it is? Well, it’s none other than Nelson Mandela. As we move forward in the New Year, we should take time to reflect on our past accomplishments and failures.
The months of January and February are a time of remembrance because of the lives and deaths of very powerful civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
To understand the contributions these men have made to our society, you must first understand where they came from and the struggles they both endured.
“I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute,” said King in some of his earlier writing.
Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King Senior birthed this monumental leader Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. His parents were advocators of education and gave King proper schooling, which led to him graduating from high school at the age of 15.
King continued his education at Morehouse College and went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. Between 1951 and 1955, he also received a degree from Crozer Theological Seminary along with his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University.
Son of the pastor to Ebenezer Baptist Church, King was ordained in 1947 and in 1954 became minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Ala. King’s ministry resulted in a Black Boycott of segregated city bus lines from 1955 to 1956. This action led to a major victory for King as a civil-rights leader when Montgomery buses began to operate on a desegregated basis.
On the other side of the world in South Africa, born as Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, Umtata, Nelson Mandela was the son of Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Nkosi Mphakanyiswa Gadla.
From an early age, Mandela dreamed of one day making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people after becoming a child of the state due to his father’s passing.
After hearing of the bravery and valor of his ancestors, Mandela began his quest to make his own mark on the world. He educated himself in Qunu, Africa, where he picked up his Christian name, "Nelson," given to him by his teacher, which was in accordance with the customs of the country at the time.
“"No one in my family had ever attended school … On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name I have no idea,” said Nelson Mandela in his memoirs.
Nelson attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute, Healdtown, and the University College of Fort Hare where he began his studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree in law. He completed his degree at the University of South Africa and graduated in 1943 after being threatened by the King of the Thembu people, for trying to dropout.
Both King and Mandela would later go on to fight for the civil rights for people of color in both of their nations.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization which gave him a base to pursue further civil-rights activities, both in the South and later nationwide. King developed his philosophy of nonviolent resistance from Ghandi’s teachings in India. His actions led to his arrest on numerous occasions throughout that time.
King’s campaigns had mixed success, but the protest he led in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, brought him worldwide attention. He spearheaded the March on Washington in August of that year and brought together more than 200,000 people of different races; unified for one cause.
On Dec. 10, 1964, at age 35, King became the youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When he learned of the honor, he announced that he would donate all of the prize money, $54,123, to the civil rights movement.
“Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle, and to a movement which has not yet won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. After contemplation, I conclude that this award, which I receive on behalf of that movement, is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression,” said King.
While King preached nonviolence in the U.S., Mandela’s mission took a more aggressive approach to get his point across in Africa beginning in the 1940s.
Mandela began his career as an activist when he became increasingly politically involved in 1942 and joined the African National Congress in 1944. As a member of the ANC, he helped to form the African National Congress Youth League. In the ANCYL, Mandela rose through the ranks and by 1949, through many years of accomplishments, the ANC had adopted a more radical mass-based policy entitled the Program of Action.
Mandela then became involved with the Defiance Campaign, an initiative that emphasized civil disobedience. The campaign was coupled between the ANC and the South African Indian Congress. This movement led to 20 people, including Mandela, being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for their part in the campaign.
Mandela earned a two-year diploma in law on top of his Bachelor of Arts allowing him to practice law, and in August 1952 he and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm, "Mandela and Tambo." Mandela would later use his legal knowledge to assist him in his defense in the future.
Mandela was arrested again, along with several thousand others in 1955, which led to the Treason Trial and triggered a state of emergency throughout the country, effectively banning the ANC as a whole.
Mandela was acquitted during the Trial of Treason and shortly after he started planning a national strike, but called it off after evaluating the mass of state security. Later in 1961 Mandela was asked to lead the armed struggle and establishment of what is translated as the “Spear of the Nation.”
As the point of “the spear” Mandela and a trusted colleague, David Motsamayi, felt they should be trained for all scenarios and seek the support of those in the nation for this struggle. With this is in mind they secretly left South Africa and began traveling to different parts of Africa and England in order to gain the support they needed to fight for the rights of their followers. The two men would go on to receive military training in Morocco and Ethiopia.
After returning to South Africa, Mandela was charged with fleeing the country illegally and inciting workers to strike, which led to him being sentenced to five years imprisonment. Later, 10 of Mandela’s comrades joined him in prison after police raided the ANC hide out. This raid spawned the Rivonia Trial, where Mandela was faced with the death penalty and replied with a quote that is now immortalized.
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die,” said Nelson Mandela.
Mandela’s act gained him and his colleagues’ life imprisonment. Additionally, the state also denied Mandela the right to attend the funerals of his mother and eldest son in later years during his imprisonment.
After battling tuberculosis, Mandela was finally released from prison on Feb. 11, 1990 and immersed himself in official talks speaking out against the Apartheid Government. In 1991 he was elected ANC president to replace his ailing friend Oliver Tambo. In 1993, he and President F.W. de Klerk jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mandela was allowed to vote for the first time in his life on April 27, 1994.
On May 10, 1994, he was inaugurated South Africa’s first democratically elected President. In 1998 Mandela married his third wife, Graça Machel’s, on his 80th birthday.
Mandela stayed true to his promise and stepped down from office in 1999 but continued to give back to the community by doing charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund that he established in 1995.
The great African leader never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. Mandela’s life has been an inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived until he was laid to rest at his home in Johannesburg on Dec. 5, 2013.
Likewise, Dr. King believed poverty for African-Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics and Asians was the cause for much of the unrest in America. He also believed that the United States involvement in Vietnam was a factor and that the war poisoned the atmosphere of the whole country, which made the solution to nationwide problems of human relations unrealistic. As a result, Dr. King’s beliefs caused friction between his self and other African-American leaders of the day who felt their problems deserved higher priority. Their collective focus was to concentrate on fighting racial injustice at home.
The “I Have a Dream,” speech, which can still be heard in classrooms, on the internet and broadcast all throughout the world, has played a significant role in bringing people together. Still, as we continue to struggle for freedom and equality, the question arises, are we living Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream?
King's leadership in the civil rights movement was significantly challenged in the mid-1960s as others grew more militant. King’s interests widened from civil rights to include criticism of the Vietnam War and a deeper concern over poverty. On April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City he gave a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam.”
“Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor,” said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On April 4, 1968, King was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. In 1991, the hotel became a monument as part the civil-rights museum and to this day, the site attracts about 200,000 people annually.
Despite this battle amongst other leaders, by early 1967, Dr. King had become associated with the antiwar movement and he continued his quest for world peace. Dr. King traveled across America in order to speak and support civil rights and the rights of the underprivileged. He continued to spread his message until his death in 1968.
Both King and Mandela were trailblazers that, against all odds, fought to achieve equality amongst all people, no matter what race, religion or political affiliation. These two men’s work can still be seen today in the progress we have achieved so far as a society.
Today, we have people of color represented as court judges, political and business leaders, heads of state and respected leaders of the community. Throughout our many problems, we have certainly overcome many of the prejudices that have plagued the past our nation and our world.
On this day, as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us reflect on how far we have come and continue to make strides that will eventually bring us all together. Let us not forget what Dr. King and Nelson Mandela fought for and cherish how their legacy effects us all to this day.
| Date Taken: |
01.20.2014 |
| Date Posted: |
01.20.2014 17:59 |
| Story ID: |
119368 |
| Location: |
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: |
164 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, King, Mandela: Pioneers of civil rights, by SFC Leticia Samuels, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
Subscribe
