Mandela & others were arrested in December
1952 for the suppression of Communi
sm Act for their part in the Defiance campaign.
They were tried, but the court found that they had always advised their followers
to act peacefully & avoid violence. His sentence of nine months was
suspended. After the campaign had ended, Mandela was prevented from attending
gatherings or leaving Johannesburg for 6 months, this was renewed repeatedly
over the next nine years.
The first Black legal firm in South Africa
In spite of this banning order, Mandela never
stopped working. He & Tambo founded the first black legal firm in South
Africa. He met Evelyn Mass. They married & had a boy and a girl who didn't
live long. They later separated because of Mandela's absorption in his political
work.
But the
government & the Transvaal Law Society were trying to disrupt Mandela &
Tambo's work. The authorities ordered them to
move their office from Johannesburg, meaning far away from their clients. They
defied the law. And the Transvaal Law Society presented a petition to the
Supreme Court to stop Mandela from his job on the ground that he was convicted
under the Suppression of Communism Act. Mr. Justice Ramsbottom found that
Mandela only wanted the benefit of the people & the petition was refused.
Also Mandela formulated the “M” Plan, named
after him, during his period of confinement to Johannesburg. It changed the way the ANC worked; its branches were broken down into separate cells ready to
work in secret. The aim of this was to maintain active contact between the
leadership & the membership without the need to open meetings. He was
charged, with another 155 people, in the Treason Trial in December 1956. It had
a negative effect on his political work. He & Duma Nokwe conducted the
defence.
He married Nkosikazi Nomzamo Madikizela, widely
known as Winnie Mandela, on the 14th
of June in 1958.
Going underground
The 1960s saw major changes. At Sharpeville in
the Southern Transvaal, on the 21st of March, the South African
security forces opened fire at a demonstration against apartheid laws. 67
blacks, including women & children got killed, Over 180 were injured. After
this incident a state of emergency was declared, the ANC was banned, and had to
go underground.
The government detained more than 11 thousand
people, including Mandela who was still on trial. The Treason trial lasted until
1961 and they were all cleared because of lack of evidence. Mandela was the
leader in this new stage of struggle. 
He went underground to avoid arrest & more banning. He sometimes dressed as a driver or as a common labourer & moved from a place to another. Because of this successful disguise, he was named the Black Pimpernel. He led a campaign for a new national convention that he called for in an African Conference in March in Pietermaritzburg. This campaign attracted support all over the country, though the call was answered by a fewer number of people than Mandela hoped.
Mandela
travelled with Sisulu secretly round the
country organizing a three-day strike. Afterward Mandela & the ANC found
that it was unrealistic to continue peaceful protest against a government that
met it with force. So, they abandoned peaceful protest & turned increasingly
to armed struggle. The ANC leadership launched, in June of that year, its armed
wing "Umkhonto we Size" (Spear of the Nation). Mandela became its head.
In January 1962, Mandela left his country in
secret and travelled to a Pan-African Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's
capital, then to Algeria, where he had some guerrilla training & arranged
training for other "Umkhonto we Sizwe" members. He also went to London where he
met opposition leaders. He returned to South Africa in July of that year but was
captured on the 5th of August. He was charged with incitement to
strike & exiting the country illegally. He carried out his own defence, but
was convicted and sentenced to an imprisonment of five years in November.
Life imprisonment
The police broke into the ANC headquarters at
Lilliesleaf farm, Rivonia. They arrested most of the leading members and seized
documents including Mandela's diary of his trip. He and other activists were
charged with sabotage and put on the Rivonia treason trial, which lasted from
October 1963 to June 1964. Mandela represented himself and his friends. His
statements in court are classics in the history of the resistance to apartheid.
These are the last words of his statement from the dock in the Rivonia Trial:
"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."
He was sentenced to a life imprisonment. His
later statement from the dock is one of the most
quoted indictments of apartheid
& he became a symbol of black political ambitions.
Mandela spent 18 years cutting stones in a
maximum-security prison on Robben Island. But there, Mandela
organised political education classes for the
other prisoners, to whom he was a source of power.
Offers from the government
In the seventies, a remission of sentence was offered to Mandela if he
would accept the Bantustan policy, recognize the independence of the Transkei (that was only recognized by the government of South Africa), & settle
there. In the time many of his friends collapsed in front of these offers &
the severe life they led in prisons, Mandela refused that offer & another
one of conditional freedom made by president P.W. Botha in 1985 if he renounced
violence. Mandela was not ready to compromise his position. As he announced in
court, he was ready to die if that would let him see the birth of a free South
Africa with no Apartheid or racism. 
He was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison, Cape
Town, in 1982. But Mandela's imprisonment didn't go as smooth as the government
wanted. On the 18th of July of each year (Mandela's birthday),
millions of Blacks used to demonstrate all over South Africa & millions of
others shared them with prayers from all over the world. Thus a worldwide “Release Mandela” campaign was launched, though he hasn't been
seen since
1964.
While in prison, Mandela began writing his
autobiography 'Long Walk to Freedom'. The book cover is shown on the left. In December 1988 he was moved to Victor
Verster Prison.
