Nelson Mandela's life in places
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Mural of Nelson Mandela in Soweto
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Nelson Mandela mural in church
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Mandela portraits in broken tiles
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Mandela, now a souvenir
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Transkei, South Africa
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Mandela's birthplace in Mvezo, South Africa
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Traditional dancers in Mvezo
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Mandela's house in Qunu, South Africa
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Rolling hills in Qunu, South Africa
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The Mandela family graveyard
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Nelson Mandela's family home in Qunu, South Africa
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Nelson Mandela's family home in Qunu
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Morson Mandela at the family home in Qunu, South Africa
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Daily life in Qunu, South Africa
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Life in Qunu, South Africa
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A horseman near Qunu, Transkei, South Africa
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Life in Qunu, South Africa
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The Sliding Rock in Qunu, South Africa
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Mqhekezweni Great Place, South Africa
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Mqhekezweni Great Place Heritage site, South Africa
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Mud hut in Mqhekezweni Great Place Heritage site
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Painted footprint at Mqhekezweni Great Place Heritage site
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Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha, South Africa
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Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison near Cape Town, South Africa
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Demonstrators outside Victor Verster call for Mandela's release, 1989
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Robben Island Prison, South Africa
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Robben Island prison near Cape Town, South Africa
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Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island
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Drakenstein Correctional Facility in Paarl, South Africa
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“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
As Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the world’s most triumphant opponent of apartheid and South Africa’s most celebrated President, battles death bravely in a hospital in Pretoria, a nation prays. This nation – Mandela’s South Africa – is one he tore free from slavery, from racial prejudice and the grip of draconian laws in flagrant violation of human rights and liberties.
On his long walk to freedom, Nelson Mandela tramped the dust of several places in South Africa, places that may appear unchanged to the unobservant eye. Yet, freedom has altered these places in ways unimaginable. Here, black people and white now share near-equitable rights, a reality fervently and violently dreamed of but unrealizable during Mandela’s childhood and youth. Mandela, as the world now knows, has been the catalyst of that change.
Explore these places. From Mvezo, where he was born, to Qunu, where he attended primary school, and to Robben Island and Paarl where he was imprisoned for nearly two decades, we trace Mandela’s journey through the places that shaped his vision, and whose place on the map he changed, perhaps forever.