Program Information

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela and other South African black leaders were released from jail. This was the beginning of the end of South Africa’s brutal regime of apartheid.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela and other South African black leaders were released from jail. This was the beginning of the end of South Africa’s brutal regime of apartheid.

Intro.: A Moment in Time Time Capsule with Dan Roberts.

Content: The official system of apartheid, that egregious scheme of oppression and separation forced upon South African blacks and coloreds by the white-dominated minority government, was not implemented until 1948. Yet it reflected the reality of South African life that had emerged since the arrival of the first Europeans in the 1600s. From the time the Dutch established a trading outpost on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, white settlers and indigenous Africans had clashed violently. As the riches of the Cape colony and attending regions became more and more evident (particularly after the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Transvaal), Africans increasingly lost their independence, land, and freedom to move about without documentation.

When the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, the Afrikaner community began to assert their form of manifest destiny rooted in their Dutch conservative Protestant heritage. Whites would control the lives and activities of blacks, mixed race coloreds, and Hindu Indian immigrants, demonstrating their dominance even over English-speaking whites who were less organized politically.

Nelson Mandela became the symbol of resistance to apartheid. Raised in the black homeland of Transkei, his rearing--largely free from humiliating encounters with whites--allowed him to develop a level of emotional self-control and maturity which would serve him well as he fleshed out a vision of South Africans, of all races, living together in peace, harmony and equality.

In the early 1950s, as an apprentice reading for the law, he joined forces with a group of young leaders within the African National Congress (ANC). His initial idealism, which led him to advocate nonviolence, came into conflict with the harsh and brutal reality of apartheid. After the infamous Sharpeville Massacre in March 1960, he and several compatriots formed a paramilitary sabotage unit of the ANC and set out to damage power stations and government buildings. When the ANC was banned by the Afrikaner government, he went underground and, in the early 1960s, traveled abroad to garner support for the South African struggle.

When he returned he was arrested, tried and condemned to spend the better part of the next three decades in prison, first on Robben Island and later in two other prisons--an increasingly celebrated political prisoner in and out of South Africa. Eventually the international pressure on South Africa became irresistible and the government released Mandela and his colleagues in 1990. His liberation unleashed a torrent of national emotion and set in motion the events that led to the end of apartheid and white domination in South Africa.

This has been an A Moment in Time Time Capsule. Research by Nancy Waldo, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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