Foundation receives 1962 Mandela photos

April 21, 2008 – At the conclusion of the Treason Trial in early 1961, the ANC decided that Nelson Mandela would go underground. About nine months later, on January 11, 1962, he left South Africa, without a passport, via what was then Bechuanaland, on his way to attend a meeting of the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East, Central and Southern Africa (PAFMECSA) in Ethiopia.

After five months of travelling and many meetings with African heads of state and others, Mr Mandela and his long-time comrade Oliver (OR) Tambo flew to London (on BOAC, as he notes in his diary) on Thursday, June 7, 1962.

Passports tell a story

March 4, 2008 – In June 1961, on the instructions of the ANC, Nelson Mandela went underground and spent many months hiding out in different locations, including Liliesleaf farm in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg – on the pretext of being a ”houseboy” or caretaker. “I had taken the name of David Motsamayi, the name of one of my former clients,” he wrote in Long Walk to Freedom.

Nelson Mandela corrects identity of woman in photograph

Feb 27, 2008 – Nelson Mandela has rectified an identification error in two photographs taken by the late Eli Weinberg.

The photographs show Mr Mandela sitting with a young woman, who had been mistakenly identified in several books as his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko Mase. The woman is in fact Batshaka Cele, a relative of Mr Mandela’s second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. 

Mandela’s early days in Johannesburg

Jan 31, 2008 – Mr Nelson Mandela has identified the person in a picture found by chance – recalling a tale of a hidden gun.

On pages 77 and 78 of Long Walk to Freedom (Abacus, London, 1994) Mr Mandela recounts this story:

“I prevailed upon a fellow named Bikitsha, whom I knew from home, to help me carry the suitcase to the front gate [of Crown Mines]. A watchman at the gate stopped us both and said he needed to search the bag. Bikitsha protested, asserting that there was no contraband in the suitcase …

Several identities in college photograph revealed

Dec 21, 2007 – The Nelson Mandela Foundation has learnt the identities of some of the people in a photograph of Mr Nelson Mandela taken during his days as a student.

A clearer picture

Nov 7, 2007 – This photograph of Mr Nelson Mandela has been published many times but it is only now that information about it has become available.

Marking Heritage Day with a new picture of Mr Nelson Mandela

A Nelson Mandela Foundation archivist has discovered a photograph of Mr Nelson Mandela during his school years which could be the earliest photograph of him yet found.

It is thought that the photograph may have been taken when he was a student at Healdtown, the Wesleyan College in Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape.