“When Mandela was just a child, he walked for miles on this route,” said guide Velile Ndlumbini as the car rolled through the green hills of the Eastern Cape. The route runs from one village to the next, and it is where a tour retracing Nelson Mandela’s life begins.
The tour was described by the Associated Press ahead of 18 July 2018, the 100th anniversary of his birth. Mandela died in 2013. The Nelson Mandela Foundation records that he was born in 1918 in the village of Mvezo.
The villages of his childhood
In Mvezo, visitors can see the homestead where he was born. He lived there until he was 2, when his father lost his post as village chief after a dispute with a magistrate. The family moved to nearby Qunu, and Mandela stayed until he was 9. His father then died, and he and his mother travelled 19 kilometers (12 miles) to Mqhekezweni.
There the acting regent king adopted him and groomed him for leadership. In his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom”, Mandela wrote that his interest in politics was first kindled by listening to tribal elders hold community meetings. Ndlumbini pointed to a shady spot under a ring of gum trees where, she said, such gatherings still happen.
Back to Qunu
Qunu is where Mandela came home after 27 years in prison. He built a family complex along the N2 highway, and some relatives still live in it. After he retired from public life he moved back himself. Dusty roads lead to his private grave, which sits across from the family burial site.
The Nelson Mandela Museum is also in Qunu. It opened on 11 February 2000, ten years to the day after his release, and walks visitors from his childhood through his political life to his election as president.
About 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the south, in King William’s Town, stands the Steve Biko Museum. Biko led the grassroots Black Consciousness Movement, influenced Mandela, and died in 1977 after being arrested and beaten. In Port Elizabeth, an installation called Route 67 shows 67 artworks for Mandela’s 67 years of service, all made by local artists. One shows laser-cut steel figures in a line to vote in the first democratic elections of 1994.
Soweto and Johannesburg
The white government created Soweto in the 1930s to move the black population away from Johannesburg. It grew into the largest black city in the country. Mandela lived there from 1946 to 1962 and met the African National Congress activist Walter Sisulu. His former home is now a museum.
The Apartheid Museum is the most exhaustive stop. Its entrance splits visitors into “blankes/whites” and “nie-blankes/non-whites”, and the displays that follow include the passes black South Africans had to carry. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum covers the 1976 Soweto riots. Hector was 12 when police firing on student protesters shot him dead. Its collection includes oral testimonies, large photographs and historical documents.
Further north, in the suburb of Rivonia, the farm-turned-museum Liliesleaf served in the 1960s as a hideout for Mandela and other activists evading police. The Rivonia Trial that followed ended with Mandela and his comrades sentenced to life in prison.
Robben Island
A 45-minute ferry ride from Cape Town leads to Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years behind bars, starting in 1964. A former prisoner leads the tour, and the high point is Mandela’s cell, a room measuring 7 by 9 feet (2 by 2.7 meters). The AP wrote that it was there he sharpened his skills as a leader and negotiator, which set him on the road to the presidency in 1994.
Visitors who want help with the route can use a mobile app, Madiba’s Journey, built by South African Tourism and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Sources
- Biography of Nelson Mandela – Nelson Mandela Foundation
- Tracing Nelson Mandela's footsteps 100 years after his birth (AP travel story) – Aruba Today
