Nelson Mandela Legacy Research Paper

Great leaders in history often leave behind a legacy. This legacy takes the values that they held dearest and is usually compacted into a couple words or a phrase that the public will forever associate with that leader’s name. For example, Mohandas Gandhi and ‘civil disobedience’ have become synonymous over the years. Whenever someone refers to the act of nonviolent protest, civil disobedience - sometimes even called the ‘Gandhian principle’ – one would think of Gandhi. Another example is Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for civil rights in the 1960s. His renowned ‘I Have a Dream’ speech changed the lives of millions of Americans as King preached equality in Washington, D.C. Like these great leaders, Nelson Mandela, too, left behind a legacy.
After reading about his accomplishments and the sacrifices he made to ensure the prosperity of his people, Mandela should be studied in primary schools in far more depth than he is today. I, as an average American, was ignorant to the fact that Mandela is still alive! I’d like to say that this was simply my ignorance, but when I asked around, I found that not many people knew this, and many of them could not define what it is exactly that Nelson Mandela achieved. After asking several people, all I got was a few people vaguely associating his name with the principle of ‘apartheid’. Mandela is an international hero and possibly one of the greatest leaders to emerge from a tiny town in South Africa, yet American college students barely know who he is. After reading Mandela’s biography, there were three things in particular that intrigued me about him. The first was his decision to resign from the Student Representative Council (SRC) at Fort Hare University. The second was his decision to execute sabotage to end the apartheid, and the third was continuing to fight after being locked up for 27
Mandela was nominated to be on the SRC (Student Representative Council) after the student body decided that they were not satisfied with their diet and that the SRC should have more power, in general. A majority of the students voted to boycott the elections until their demands were met but one-sixth of the student body showed up and voted in six representatives. They decided to support the boycott and resigned. However, when elections were held again, the same six representatives were voted in again. They had come full circle. Mandela, unlike the other 5, would once again resign in order to stick to his decision and hold his ground. The principal told him that if he did not take back his resignation for the second time, he would be expelled. One of the most interesting quotes in Mandela’s book is when he says, “Was I sabotaging my academic career over an abstract moral principle that mattered very little?” (Mandela, 19) I find this curious because this was the first time that Mandela was making a decision important enough to alter his life. After all, he was accepted into a school that not many were fortunate enough to get into – was he truly giving it all up to have better food in the cafeteria? Mandela says that, “when I needed to compromise, something inside would not let me” (Mandela, 20). He left