Nelson Mandela Walks Out of Prison

On 11 February 1990, South African state president F. W. de Klerk's government released of Nelson Mandela after twenty-seven years of incarceration. Mandela had spent decades detained at Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison, having been sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964 at the end of the Rivonia Trial for plotting to overthrow the government. His release occurred in a climate of escalating domestic unrest, growing international pressure, and widespread official concern over the risk of racial civil conflict. Stepping out into freedom transformed him from the world's most prominent political prisoner into an open political actor facing the challenge of dismantling apartheid.

Mandela had risen through the ranks of the African National Congress from the 1940s, co-founding its Youth League and directing mass actions such as the 1952 Defiance Campaign. Following the 1948 election victory of the National Party, white-minority rule instituted apartheid to enforce racial segregation and maintain political domination. Although Mandela initially favoured nonviolent resistance, he eventually determined that legal and nonviolent avenues were exhausted under state repression. Alongside allies from the South African Communist Party, he co-founded the militant organisation Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961, directing a clandestine campaign of sabotage against state infrastructure.