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5 Changing the World

Nelson Mandela from An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die, 49
Martin Luther King Jr. I Have Been to the Mountaintop, 55
Virginia Woolf Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid, 66

from An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die section three

Nelson Mandela

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) was a South
African political activist who eventually became the president of South
Africa from 1994 to 1999. His actions as a political activist fighting for
equality resulted in his spending twenty-seven years in prison. Chris Jackson/Getty Images
KEY CONTEXT Long before he became the president of South Africa and
a Nobel Prize winner, Nelson Mandela fought against a system known as
apartheid, the racial segregation of people within South Africa. As a result,
Mandela faced constant persecution from the ruling political party in South Africa at the time, the
National Party. Mandela was arrested four times, in 1952, 1956, 1962, and then again in 1963, when
he was tried along with ten other defendants in what is called the Rivonia Trial. Due to a justice
system that was beholden to the ruling National Party, Mandela was convicted and sentenced to life
in prison. Following intense international pressure, he was released in 1993.
The text that follows is an excerpt from Mandela’s courtroom speech at the opening of the
defense case in the Rivonia Trial. Although he was eventually convicted of the charges, the speech
became a rallying point for opposition leaders and is considered to be one of the most compelling
and important speeches made by Mandela in his illustrious career.

am the first accused. I hold a bachelor’s nor because I have any love of violence. I planned
Idegree in arts and practised as an attorney in it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of
Johannesburg for a number of years in the political situation that had arisen after many
partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of
prisoner serving five years for leaving the my people by the whites.
country without a permit and for inciting people I admit immediately that I was one of the
to go on strike at the end of May 1961.[…] persons who helped to form Umkhonto we
1
I must deal immediately and at some length Sizwe , and that I played a prominent role in its
with the question of violence. Some of the things affairs until I was arrested in August 1962. [. . .]
so far told to the court are true and some are
untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned 1 The military wing of the African National Congress, translated as
sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, “Spear of the Nation.” — Eds.

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