STATEMENT OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS ON THE CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF NELSON ROLIHLAHLA MANDELA
“A HERO FOR ALL TIMES”
The African National Congress along with millions of men, women and children across the globe, celebrates the Centenary since the birth of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Six years after he left this earth, his legacy lives on and grows from strength to strength.
Shaped by the country of his birth, running wild as a child on the rolling hills of Transkei, yet conscious of his responsibilities to look after his family’s cattle; every stage of his life has lessons for all of us.
Thus Rolihlahla Mandela, with Oliver Tambo, Albertina Sisulu, Anton Lembede, Ashley Mda, and Walter Sisulu showed us that every generation must and can define their mission when they formed the ANC Youth League at Fort Hare in 1943.
Mandela’s generation organized and mobilised young people, students and workers across the country; they studied the problems of the South African people, learned from other countries and developed the 1949 Programme of Action, that transformed the ANC to pose a formidable challenge to the Nats programme of grand Apartheid.