Home / Full timeline / Nelson R. Mandela, the major symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Republic of South Africa, is released from prison after serving twenty-seven years.
Nelson R. Mandela, the major symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Republic of South Africa, is released from prison after serving twenty-seven years.
1990 (Feb 11)
Nelson R. Mandela, the major symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Republic of South Africa, was released from prison after serving twenty-seven years. Mandela's release was ordered by Frederick W. de Klerk, the new president of South Africa. It was applauded by political and human rights leaders around the world, including the United States. In 1986, the U.S. Congress had passed the Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed economic sanctions on the white minority government of South Africa. (President Ronald Reagan had vetoed the measure earlier.) The act stipulated that the sanctions could only be lifted after South Africa had freed all political prisoners (of which Mandela was considered the principal one); legalized the African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid groups, engaged in good faith negotiations on the nation's political future; lifted the state of emergency, and made substantial progress on dismantling apartheid, South Africa's system of racial segregation. President de Klerk lifted a thirty-year-old ban on the ANC on February 2, 1990. Randall Robinson, executive director of Trans-Africa, the leading anti-apartheid group in the United States, expressed the great delight of most Black Americans upon the news of Mandela's release, but he warned that sanctions must remain in place and that "it would be a mistake... at this juncture for President Bush to invite President de Klerk to visit the U.S."
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.