MANDELA: An Audio History
— THE UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT (1960-1964)

NPR HOST: In the 1950's, South Africa began one of the most extreme experiments in racial separation the world had ever seen.

PRIME MINISTER VERWOERD (ARCHIVAL): Our policy is one which is called by the Afrikaans word apartheid,
which could much better be described as a policy of good neighborliness.

NPR HOST: Apartheid was a creation of the National Party. It went far beyond mere segregation; each race would be confined to its own area with whites controlling the vast majority of the country .and blacks in their demarcated "homelands."

It was in this strange landscape that young Nelson Mandela and his comrades began their push to break the white domination of the country.

This week, we are marking the 10th anniversary of South Africa's first multi-racial election with the series, Mandela: An Audio History by producers Joe Richman and Sue Johnson.

(MARCHING BAND)

GOVERNMENT NEWSREEL: The Prime Minister, Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, and Mrs. Verwoerd arrive for the Republic Festival Parade at the Voortrekker Monument.

ALLISTER SPARKS, journalist: Hendrik Verwoerd was generally regarded as the chief architect of this grand apartheid policy. It was his idea, in the late fifties, to separate the country into a white nation and a series of independent states for the various black tribes.

PRIME MINISTER VERWOERD (ARCHIVAL): My friends, this Republic is part of the white man's domain in the world.

(CHEERS)

HELEN SUZMAN, former opposition Member of Parliament: When Dr. Verwoerd took over, there's no doubt there was a change. And he was an extremely impressive speaker, I must tell you. In fact, you used to listen to him speaking for three hours without a note, adding one thing after the other. And you sat there nodding your head like a zombie until it suddenly occurred to you it was all based on a false premise.

PRIME MINISTER VERWOERD (ARCHIVAL): Our policy is one which is called by the Afrikaans word, apartheid. It could much better be described as a policy of good neighborliness.

(CHEERS)

HELEN SUZMAN: He had convinced himself, and a large number of well-meaning Afrikaners, that there was nothing repressive about the system. It was simply separation. They had their areas, the whites had their areas. This is our only way of survival: we maintain the army, the police, the vote. And we keep it that way.

(SINGING: MIRIAM MAKEBA, "VERWOERD")

MIRIAM MAKEBA, singer: Watch out, Verwoerd! The black man will get you! The world sings with me.

EDDIE DANIELS, activist: The government was powerful. The government was strong. And the laws were becoming far more stringent.

DENNIS GOLDBERG, activist: Political activity was getting nowhere. In fact, the situation was getting worse. White South Africa and its government simply determined it would crush the struggle. And they tried.

NEWSREEL: Armored cars and armed police swooped down to the Nyanga township, ten miles from Cape Town, aided by spotting aircraft. Fifteen hundred natives were arrested and questioned, 162 were kept in prison.

DULLAH OMAR, activist: There was a state of emergency in the 1960s. Thousands of people were arrested. Many were detained.

NEWSREEL: There was a state of emergency in the 1960s. Thousands of people were arrested. Many were detained.

AHMED KATHRADA, activist: The ANC had been declared illegal. So Oliver Tambo was sent out of the country and some of the other leaders followed. Mandela, it was decided, should stay in the country. And he carried on his work underground.

(INTERVIEW WITH MANDELA WHILE UNDERGROUND — ARCHIVAL)

MANDELA: The Africans require the franchise on the basis of one man, one vote. They want political independence.

INTERVIEWER: If Dr. Verwoerd's government doesn't give you the concessions you want some time soon, is there any likelihood of violence?

MANDELA: There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I think the time has come for us to consider whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate.

(INTERVIEW ENDS)

NELSON MANDELA: I had made a statement where I called for armed struggle. Naturally, there was a great deal of resistance from the leadership, but I believed that we were moving into that situation, because the government had left us with no other alternative.

JOE MATTHEWS, activist: The adoption of an armed struggle, after a struggle that had been well known for its non-violent and peaceful character, was somewhat startling.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: The Ghandian concept, in our view, couldn't work in South Africa. In India, the British colonial administration could pack up and go home. But that would not happen in South Africa. There were, at the time, two or three million whites who were part of South Africa; they had been here so long. These people were not going home. So in the ANC we set about creating an underground, illegal fighting force to make sure that South Africans, and the world, would know what's going on.

JOE MATTHEWS: Mandela then started looking for a name. What are we going to call this movement? And he suggested the Xhosa name Umkhonto we Sizwe, which meant 'Spear of the Nation.' Umkhonto we Sizwe.

(MUSIC)

NEWSREEL: At the end of 1961, the bombing campaign started. Its targets: telephone poles, power supplies, post offices, telephone booths, and pass offices — objects, not people. The aim was to shock the government into negotiating.

NEWSREEL 2: One of their objects was to destroy records of the passes they detest having to carry.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: There were explosions, many in Johannesburg — power pylons, government pass offices. They weren't just random, callous explosions that just happened to be. There had to be an understanding by the masses of people that organized armed resistance had started. The only deaths were our own people who were careless with their explosives.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER (ARCHIVAL): As far as the government of South Africa is concerned, the breakdown of law and order in South Africa will not be tolerated under any circumstances whatsoever.

AHMED KATHRADA: We were branded terrorists by the whole western world. They would have nothing to do with us. As somebody once said: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

(SINGING — LUNGI SISULU)

DENNIS GOLDBERG: Of course it would have been naive for us to think we could stand in battle against an army, air force, navy, police force, reservists of 400,000 people. But if you don't have crazy dreams, you do nothing.

(SINGING ENDS)

LUNGI SISULU, activist: We don't care whether they arrest us, they torture us — we are prepared to fight for our freedom.

MAC MAHARAJ, activist: We used to sing a song, "One stick, two sticks, six sticks of dynamite, we'll take the country the Castro way." Now remember, Castro's campaign was a very short campaign. Within a space of two years they had overrun Cuba. So here we were, the comrades, we were all singing this song, as if to say in six months time we would be free. In six months time we were languishing in prison.

(SINGING AND CROWDS)

NEWSCAST: A remarkable demonstration by a crowd of several hundred outside the courthouse in Pretoria. Nelson Mandela, his wife you just saw, leader and founder of the sabotage movement, Spear of the Nation, and a leading member of the African National Congress, accused, with the others, of plotting sabotage to overthrow the South African government by force.

(SINGING FADES)

AHMED KATHRADA: From day one of our arrests, the police drummed it into our heads, "You are going to die. You are going to hang." And the first day the lawyer said, "Chaps, prepare for the worst." And that remained their attitude right through the trial.

(COURTROOM SCENE)

PROSECUTOR (ARCHIVAL): Firstly, the state alleges the planned purpose was to bring about chaos, disorder, and turmoil in a battle to be waged against the white man in this country.

GEORGE BIZOS, defense attorney: They were called terrorists. We knew there was no hope of getting an acquittal. The question was, "What do we do with the trial?"

NELSON MANDELA: Our approach was one of defiance, because we said, "It is the government that is a criminal and should be standing in the dock to face trial. We are not guilty."

PROSECUTOR (ARCHIVAL): That, my Lord, is the case for the State.

AHMED KATHRADA: When the defense case started, Mandela, he was going to be the first defense witness. The prosecutor, Dr. Yutar, he had prepared extensively to cross-examine Mandela and break him down. And they all got a shock when our lawyers announced that Mandela will not give evidence but he'll make a statement from the dock.

(COURTROOM SCENE)

GEORGE BIZOS: The courtroom was absolutely packed. He stood up and he proceeded to deliver this speech.

NELSON MANDELA SPEECH AT TRIAL (ARCHIVAL): During my lifetime, I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people...

AHMED KATHRADA: It was a four-hour speech. But that last bit where he said, "These are the ideals for which I am prepared to die." Just that last bit...

DENNIS GOLDBERG: I knew what he was going to say, because we had all seen the speech. Everybody had made comments about it. And I knew he was going to say, in effect, "Hang me if you dare to, Mr. Judge." But only when he said it...

NELSON MANDELA SPEECH AT TRIAL (ARCHIVAL): I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for. But, my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: It was terribly moving. Nobody said anything. Even the judge didn't know what to say. I knew it was a moment of history. He emerged then as a great leader.

(COURT ADJOURNS)

NELSON MANDELA: I remember we adjourned for lunch and a friendly Afrikaner warder asked me the question, "Mandela, what do you think is going to happen to you in this case?" I said to him, "Agh, they are going to hang us." Now, I was really expecting some word of encouragement from him. And I thought he was going to say, "Agh man, that can never happen." But he became serious and then he said, "I think you are right, they are going to hang you."

(CROWDS)

NEWSCAST: The next day, armed police massed an even greater force as Mr. Justice de Wet was passing sentence.

JUDGE (ARCHIVAL): I am by no means convinced that the motives of the accused were as altruistic as they wish the court to believe...

AHMED KATHRADA: When they said, "Stand up for your sentence," we thought, "Well, here it comes."

JUDGE (ARCHIVAL): The sentence in the case of all the accused will be life imprisonment. The court will then adjourn.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: And, um... we laughed. We turned to each other and laughed because we expected to be hanged.

NEWSCAST: At the back entrance to Pretoria Court, large crowds gather to watch the accused being driven away to start their life sentences.

(SINGING)

DENNIS GOLDBERG: Nelson Mandela did become the symbol of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. People could identify with Nelson Mandela: Nelson Mandela the lawyer, Nelson Mandela the hero, Nelson Mandela the handsome man. But it was the response to his Rivonia Trial speech, called throughout the world the 'I am prepared to die' speech, which somersaulted him — and the African National Congress, and the need to put an end to apartheid — into the world's consciousness.

(AIRPLANE)

NELSON MANDELA: As we were being flown to Robben Island, one tried to accept the reality that we may, in fact, spend years in prison. But we believed very strongly that we would not die in jail. We would return.

(MUSIC: "WELELE")

"WELELE" (sung in Xhosa): Mandela, don't let the whites undermine us. Help! People are dying. We sleep in the mountains.

You can find biographical information about the people in this story here.