Long Walk to Freedom

At midnight, the day after the sentencing, the Pretoria warden, Colonel Aucamp, tells Mandela he will be imprisoned where he can walk around and see the ocean. Mandela knows this means Robben Island.

The seven convicted men are flown directly to the island and housed in a new block designed for political prisoners and capable of housing 30 convicts. More prisoners are added to the block—a sizeable percentage of them are members of the ANC, MK, or allied organizations—forming a core of about twenty prisoners.

The prisoners are put to work breaking rocks in the block’s courtyard, and they are not allowed to talk. The food and clothing provided are barely adequate, and the mood is grim. Mandela writes: “The high spirits with which we left Pretoria had been snuffed out by its stern atmosphere; we were face to face with the realization that our life would be unredeemably grim” (387).

Life on Robben Island settles into a routine that is “comforting for the prisoner, which is why it can be a trap” (389). To bolster his own morale, Mandela frames his time in prison as a continuation of his struggle for dignity. He refuses to believe he will die in prison and resists every attempt to diminish his sense of self. 

Mandela details the daily routine of the prison and the different provisions given to prisoners based on their racial backgrounds. For example, African prisoners are denied bread on the grounds that they naturally do not care for European food.  

International visitors, mostly journalists and representatives of organizations such as the Red Cross, begin to appear within Mandela’s first few months on the island. He allows a journalist from London’s Daily Telegraph to take what would be the only picture of him on Robben Island. Some visitors, such as Mr. Hynning of the American Bar Association, are actively hostile to the prisoners, but most are sympathetic.

Mandela details the methods of discipline employed by the prison. Every prisoner is assigned a classification—A, B, C, or D—that determines certain privileges. For example, sending and receiving letters are a privilege the authorities can withhold. As a prisoner of D classification, Mandela can only send and receive one letter every six months, but mail is sometimes still withheld without explanation. A prisoner’s status is reviewed every six months, but these served more as political tribunals than review boards.

By the end of August, less than three months after his arrival, Winnie visits Mandela. They have no privacy and are not allowed physical contact. He discovers that she has been put under a two-year political ban and, as a result, lost her job as a social worker. When she departs, he does not see her again for another two years.

In January 1965, the political prisoners are reassigned to the lime quarry. Colonel Wessels, the guards’ commanding officer, tells the prisoners they will only have this assignment for six months. (They will end up spending 13 years working in the quarry.) Despite the backbreaking labor, the prisoners are reinvigorated by being outside the courtyard. The authorities try to keep the political prisoners from contacting the criminal inmates. Robert Sobukwe, whose prison sentence ended in 1963, is still held in a small cottage on the island.

Shortly after their assignment to the quarry, more political prisoners join Mandela’s block, but a handful of hardened criminals are also transferred to intimidate and harass the political prisoners. When the criminal prisoners make a mocking song about the Rivonia trial, the political prisoners respond with their own satirical songs. After several weeks, a guard fluent in Xhosa stops the singing.

Mandela hopes to awaken political consciousness in the criminal inmates. When one of them, Joe My Baby, is beaten by guards, Mandela agrees to represent him in his complaint. The prison commander bribes Joe to drop his complaint, leaving Mandela embarrassed. From then on, he requires a signed statement from any other prisoner asking for help.

In the summer of 1965, the prison food suddenly improves, and the prisoners are issued new clothes. Two days later, a representative of the International Red Cross arrives and speaks with Mandela. International pressure is crucial to improving the prisoners’ conditions. During this period, the prisoners are permitted to study, though their opportunities are severely limited by censorship and inadequate resources.

The Red Cross representative is Mr. Senn, a Swedish man who moved to Rhodesia. He has assimilated to some of the racial prejudices in Rhodesia, so he does not make for an ideal liaison. One of the main complaints Mandela presents to him is how the guards “charge” the prisoners. For violating specific regulations, prisoners can be charged and punished with isolation or loss of food. Mandela, for example, was given three days in solitary without food for possessing a newspaper.

One day, Wessels’s superior visits the quarry. Mandela breaks regulations to approach him and present his complaints directly. He is charged and spends four days in solitary. From this, he learns that “the best way to effect change on Robben Island was to attempt to influence officials privately rather than publicly” (417). 

Mandela and his comrades do their best to befriend the guards. Sometimes, they are even able to explain the ANC’s actual policies and sway the guards politically. The prisoners also devise ways to communicate with the other sections of the prison, and soon they are coordinating with the rest of the detained. Because lawyers are not searched, they are often used to ferry useful information to and from the island.

In July 1966, prisoners in the main section begin a hunger striker for better conditions. When the political prisoners hear, they join the protest. After a few days, the guards, unhappy with their own food and housing, also join, and the prison commander agrees to negotiate.

Despite the success of this first hunger strike, this is not one of Mandela’s preferred protest methods because it injures the protestor rather than the oppressor. He favors work strikes, work slow-downs, and refusing to clean up.

Meanwhile, Winnie visits for the first time in two years. Mandela knows the authorities have mercilessly harassed her and her family. Following this visit, Winnie once again loses her job.

By 1966, the atmosphere in the prison has lightened. The prisoners are permitted to talk while they work, and they frequently debate their political views. That same year, the Transvaal Law Society attempts to have Mandela removed from the roll of practicing attorneys. He responds with a flurry of requests to the prison to allow him to prepare a defense. The Law Society, unprepared for this fierce resistance, drops the case.

In September 1966, President Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death by a white assassin. The guards’ anger is directed at the prisoners, and a crackdown begins. An infamous guard named Van Rensburg—a Nazi enthusiast with a swastika tattoo—is reassigned to the political prisoners. Van Rensburg is cruel but stupid, and the prisoners sometimes manage to frustrate him through bureaucratic methods.

In early 1967, Helen Suzman, the sole member of the South African Parliament from the Progressive Party, visits the prisoners. Mandela tells her of their grievances, singling out Van Rensburg in particular, and he is transferred off the island several weeks later.

The ANC has been devastated by the capture of Liliesleaf Farm, and the role of the organization’s External Mission, led by Oliver Tambo, becomes even more significant. Beyond seeking allies abroad, the External Mission must now recruit, train, and equip MK guerrillas. It often allies with the armed anticolonial struggles in neighboring countries such as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

In 1967, the ANC allies with the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). The first MK regiment, the Luthuli Detachment, is trained in ZAPU camps but defeated by Rhodesian forces before they can reenter South Africa. New troops have more success fighting the Rhodesian and South African forces in 1968.

Mandela continues trying to reconcile the ANC and PAC prisoners but talks between the two groups do not bear fruit. The ANC prisoners form the High Organ, a council made of Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, and, eventually, a fifth rotating member. 

In the spring of 1968, Mandela’s mother visits him, accompanied by his sister and two of his children. He has not seen them since the trial and is amazed to see that his son and daughter are all grown up. Several weeks later, his mother dies of a heart attack, and he is not allowed to attend the funeral. For weeks, Mandela reflects on his life and asks himself if he was right to put the fight for independence ahead of his family.

On May 12, 1969, Winnie is arrested without charge under the 1967 Terrorism Act and interrogated brutally. She and 22 others are accused of attempting to revive the ANC. In October the next year, the government drops its case, but Winnie is almost immediately placed under ban again and unable to visit Mandela.

In July 1969, Mandela is informed that Makgatho, his youngest son, was killed in a car accident. Mandela is despondent and once more denied the liberty to attend the funeral.