Long Walk to Freedom

 

It's a 751 page commitment, but for anyone interested in maintaining justice, in leadership and the story of not just one brave man, but the many determined people who walked on (and on!) with him, it'll be worth it. A few resonating quotes below.


On surviving in prison: 


"To survive in prison, one must develop ways to take satisfaction in one's daily life. One can feel fulfilled by washing one's clothes so that they are particularly clean, by sweeping a corridor so that it is free of dust, by organizing one's cell to conserve as much space as possible. The same pride one takes in more consequential tasks outside prison one can find in doing small things inside prison." 


On fighting injustice as a permanent lifestyle:


"For us, such struggles --for sunglasses (while working at the prison quarry where the sun was damaging their eyes) long trousers, study privileges, equalized food --were corollaries to the struggle we waged outside prison. The campaign to improve conditions in prison was part of the apartheid struggle. It was, in that sense, all the same; we fought injustice wherever we found it, no matter how large or how small, and we fought injustice to preserve our own humanity."


On human nature, after an encounter with a cruel prison officer who when leaving, shocked Mandela by saying: "I just want to wish you people good luck":


"I thought about this moment for a long time afterwards. Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer we had had on Robben Island. But that day in the office, he had revealed that there was another side to his nature, a side that had been obscured but that still existed. It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing. Utlimately, Badenhorst was not evil; his inhumanity had been foisted upon him by an inhuman system. He behaved like a brute because he was rewarded for brutish behaviour."