“Nelson”: Student Years

While the majority of boys Mandela had known and lived near would go on to
work in the gold mines, Mandela was destined to be educated further, to
become
an advisor to the rulers of the tribe. Both his birth circumstances and his own
inclinations suggested that he would follow in his father’s footsteps as a
councilor.
He was sent to boarding school at Clarkebury Boarding Institute, a combination
of a teacher-training college, a secondary school, and a technical school. The
Institute—then the largest school in the area for Africans—was a cluster of
more
than 20 Western-style buildings on the site of a Wesleyan mission. The best
school available at the time to Africans, it was both challenging and exciting to
the young Mandela. It attracted privileged black African boys, many of whom
came from royal lineages like Mandela, as well as some white boys and even
some girls. Although at first Mandela was surprised at the lack of deference
paid
to him, he quickly adapted and rose to the challenge of working hard in the
classroom and on the sports grounds.
Mandela’s advantage was that the governor of the school, a white man called
Reverend C. Harris, agreed to allow Mandela to perform afternoon chores
(which all students were required to perform) in the reverend’s own personal
garden. There Mandela acquired a lifelong love of gardening. He also took
advantage to learn by proximity from the great reverend, who was so
important
to the Thembu people.
Although Mandela had to study hard, he completed the required courses for a
junior certificate in two years instead of three. He found time also to play
soccer
and tennis and to form his first close female friendship, with a girl named
Mathona. Mandela said later that his friendship with her formed the basis of
his
later friendships with women.
In 1937, Mandela joined his friend Justice at a Methodist college called
Healdtown. The school had strict rules and a rigorous study program, including
students rising at 6 a.m. for a breakfast of dry bread, classes all morning, and
study all afternoon and evening, with lights out at 9:30 p.m. Despite the
school’s
overwhelming emphasis on British culture—the white English principal boasted
of being related to the Duke of Wellington—Mandela appreciated meeting
students from all over Africa. He liked knowing different kinds of people and
took pride in having a friend who spoke a different first language and did not
come from the Xhosa people. Mandela admired his zoology teacher, who
spoke
Sotho and had married a Xhosa girl at a time when intertribal marriages were
rare. It was at Healdtown that Mandela began to identify not just as a member
of
the Thembu tribe or of the Xhosa people but as an African as well.
During Mandela’s time at Healdtown, his housemaster Reverend S. Mokitimi
introduced many reforms, including improvements to the students’ diet.
However, one popular change in the college customs worried Mandela: female
and male students were allowed to dine together on Sunday afternoons, and
during this time Mandela felt self-conscious about his table manners. Like most
of the boys from the countryside, he had grown up eating with his hands, and
he
had not yet become graceful with a knife and fork. Sunday afternoon meals
were
an ordeal for Mandela, who often left feeling hungry and awkward.
In his second year, Mandela was made a prefect, which meant that he was
given
responsibility for enforcing school rules and good behavior. His position
sometimes caused him to feel some conflict, as when, put on night duty, he
witnessed another prefect violating a rule against urinating in the bushes. The
future leader of South Africa questioned his responsibilities. He began to ask
the
kind of questions that would inform his later philosophy of leadership. At that
time, he worried about whether he, as prefect, had the duty to report a
violation
by another prefect. If a prefect broke the rules, he wondered, how could the
ordinary students be expected to obey them?
At age 21, Mandela went on to Fort Hare University, a small, select missionary
college that was for black South Africans the grandest of educational
institutions. He compared it to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale. At Fort
Hare, he studied law with the goal of obtaining a B.A. Still with the
acknowledged intention of becoming advisor to the tribal rulers, Mandela was
also secretly aspiring to become a civil servant such as a court translator, a job
that was highly regarded and desirable for Africans. He wanted to be able to
afford to give his mothers and sisters a more comfortable life than had been
possible since his father’s death.
The college’s student body numbered only about 150, and the small size
allowed
Mandela to be more successful in competitive sports. In his free time, he
played
soccer and ran cross-country as well as taught Bible classes in the community,
performed in a dramatic society, and learned to dance. He and his friends
learned
to do foxtrots and waltzes by dancing with each other, taking turns to lead and
follow, but they were very eager to practice the steps with the fairer sex.
One night, he and his friends snuck away from college and into a prestigious
dance-hall that was off-limits to undergraduates. Once inside, Mandela asked
an
attractive woman to dance with him, and she agreed. All went well until he
asked her name and learned that she was the wife of one of Africa’s most
respected scholars, who was at that moment standing near the dance floor
conversing with one of Mandela’s professors. Mandela escorted the lady off
the
floor and apologized, thinking guiltily about the numerous college rules he had
broken.
To Mandela’s surprise, he was never chastised for this breach of protocol. His
professor seemed to overlook it because of Mandela’s hard work, and Mandela
redoubled his efforts after that escapade.
At Fort Hare, Mandela made two important and enduring friendships. He
befriended K. D. Matanzima, who was technically Mandela’s nephew despite
being older than he. Although they had not met before, both boys slept in the
same dormitory, the Methodist hostel called Wesley House.
In his first year, Mandela was instrumental in changing the makeup of the
House
Committee, which made decisions regarding the hostel. Mandela and other
residents wanted the committee to include residents and freshmen as well as
upperclassmen. Mandela himself was elected to serve on that House
Committee,
a position that put him into some conflict with the established authority. He
and
his fellow new committee members overcame the objections of the original
members and prevailed in what they thought was right. However, they were
not
above inflicting unpleasant duties on the upperclassmen, possibly in retaliation
for the unpleasantness they had endured at the same upperclassmen’s hands.
Mandela’s other important friendship was with a boy called Oliver Tambo.
Tambo stood out for his brilliance and ambition, though he was reputed to be
involved with the African National Congress. The ANC, which was working for
an independent Africa, was an organization about which Mandela knew little,
except that it was associated with rebellion. Mandela, who was studying
politics
as well as law, did not become involved with the organization.
In fact, Mandela was enthusiastic about a visit to the school by former Prime
Minister Jan Smuts. Smuts, at that time a supporter of racial segregation, came
to
the college to speak at graduation and to garner support for Africa to join
England in the war with Germany, an idea Mandela endorsed.
While being exposed to, and interacting with, some of the greatest African
scholars and political leaders of the time, Mandela still at times felt himself to
be
provincial, a country boy or a bumpkin, who was a bit lost in a cosmopolitan
environment. Sometimes he and the other boys from rural backgrounds would
secretly go out late at night to enjoy telling tales around a bonfire and eating
traditional foods such as roasted corn.
When he was studying for his exams, Mandela, along with five other boys, was
elected to the Student Representative Council. However, very few students
(only
about one-sixth of the student body) had actually voted in the election, so all
six
of the elected boys declined to serve, saying that the vote had not been fair
and
democratic. The vote was held again under slightly more auspicious
circumstances—arranged by the principal, Dr. Kerr—but the results were much
the same. While the other five elected members opted to serve their terms,
Mandela alone maintained that the vote had not been sufficiently democratic
and
that it would be wrong for him to serve. His disagreement with the principal’s
view resulted in his being suspended from the college. Although he had the
option to return in the fall, doing so would have entailed his enforced
participation in the SRC, a requirement that Mandela did not think fair.
After taking his exams, Mandela returned to Mqhekezweni, where he had to
face
the wrath of his benefactor, Chief Jongintaba. The regent told Mandela that he
should return to school, apologize to the principal, and resume his studies.
Mandela did not agree to do so, but neither did he argue with the regent. He
let
the matter rest and for the time being returned to his duties at the Great Place,
helping the regent with his cattle and his business with other tribal leaders.
After a few weeks, the regent summoned Justice and Mandela and announced
to
them that it was time for them to marry and that he had found suitable wives
for
each of them. Neither boy wanted to be married, and both had high hopes of a
life beyond Mqhekezweni. Again, though, they protested very little, knowing
that the regent’s word was law. Mandela at that point had engaged in a few
love
affairs, but he did not wish to marry the regent’s choice—a woman who was,
he
said, clearly in love with Justice.
Privately, Mandela approached the regent’s wife, telling her that he would
prefer
to be engaged to a different lady, a relative of the wife, and that he would like
to
marry her only after his law studies were completed. He hoped at least to buy
himself some time in this manner, but his efforts failed, and the arranged
marriages went forward in accordance with the regent’s plan. The regent
himself
would pay the bride-price for Mandela, a number of cattle to be given to the
bride’s father.
In despair, Mandela and Justice decided to run away to Johannesburg. Doing so
was fraught with difficulty, as blacks at that time had to carry not only “native
passes” (formal identification), which the boys had, but also detailed papers
giving them authority to travel, which the boys did not have. They secretly sold
two of the regent’s oxen to raise funds, but when they tried to get on a train,
they
found that the stationmaster had been alerted by the regent. Knowing that the
boys might be trying to run away, he refused to sell them tickets.
Determined not to return home, the boys went to another train station some
50
miles away and took a train to Queenstown, where they spent the night with
relatives. While they were trying to obtain travel documents in Queenstown to
continue their journey, news of the boys’ whereabouts reached the regent by
phone. He demanded that they be arrested and returned home. However,
Mandela, drawing on his law studies, convinced the local authorities that he
and
Justice should not be arrested, and the boys spent most of the rest of their
money
to buy transportation to Johannesburg.