NELSON MANDELA DAY: South Africans celebrate Nelson Mandela on his 105th posthumous birthday

NELSON MANDELA DAY 2023: South Africans celebrate Nelson Mandela on his 105th posthumous birthday.

The Nelson Mandela Bridge in Braamfontein will be undergoing maintenance & will be closed for 3 days while repair work takes place.

The maintenance and cleaning of the bridge will take place between Tuesday the 18th. 

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela earned his first degree, a BA, through UNISA in 1942. He studied through UNISA (University of South Africa) during his imprisonment on Robben Island and at Pollsmoor. Unisa awarded him an LLB in 1989 and an Honorary Doctorate in Law in 1995. “Dear Professor W.J. Hoston, I thank you for your letter on the 5th of December 1998 in which you advised that I have completed the LLB degree. It was fitting that you should be the first to congratulate me on this achievement. I firmly believe that without your support, my request for exemption from the languages would probably not have succeeded. The accomplishment will further strengthen my ties with UNISA and enable me to join scores of men and women, inside and outside South Africa whose ability to serve their respective communities has been considerably enhanced by obtaining this degree.”

Honouring South Africa’s first black president and global icon on his birthday – here are interesting excerpts from his prison letters to family, fellow activists, government officials, academians, and friends. Arrested in 1962 as South Africa’s apartheid regime intensified its brutal campaign against anti-apartheid activists, 44-year-old lawyer and African National Congress activist Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in the penitentiary. Extracted from Audible’s – The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela, these accounts provide an intimate portrait of his long walk to freedom.