Dec. 5-11, 2013, Current Events Lesson Plan
Current Event:
On Dec. 6, 2013, Nelson Mandela, a key figure in ending apartheid in South Africa and the first black president of that country, died. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in southeastern South Africa. After earning a bachelor’s degree in 1943, he studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 1952, he and another political activist, Oliver Tambo, opened the first black law partnership in South Africa. The men had been founding members in 1944 of the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC), a party that fought to gain political and civil rights for the country’s blacks and other nonwhites. The South African government outlawed the ANC in 1960. The ANC then began a policy of violent resistance to apartheid. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and convicted in 1964 of sabotage and conspiracy. He was sentenced to life in prison and spent the next 27 years as a political prisoner of South Africa. During the time of Mandela’s imprisonment, people around the world became more aware of the injustice of South Africa’s apartheid system and of the plight of its political prisoners. Eventually, the pressure on the government of South Africa was too great, and in early 1990, Frederik Willem de Klerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress (ANC). On Feb. 11, 1990, Mandela was released from prison. On becoming president of the ANC in 1991, he urged a policy of working with the white government of de Klerk during the transitional time at the end of apartheid rule. Mandela and de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In 1994, in the first elections held in South Africa in which people of all races could vote, Mandela was elected president. He served from 1994 to 1999. After his retirement from politics in 1999, he became an esteemed elder statesman and worked to promote social justice.
Objective:
South Africa is a country at the southern tip of the continent of Africa. The country has a wealth of natural resources, especially gold and other minerals, and it is the most highly industrialized country in Africa. South Africa was the last nation in Africa to maintain rule by a white minority. From the late 1940′s to the early 1990′s, the white government enforced a policy of rigid racial segregation called apartheid. Under apartheid, the government denied voting rights and other rights to the black majority. South Africa’s racial groups are no longer segregated by law. However, unofficial discrimination still exists, and whites generally enjoy a higher standard of living than other groups do. Today, blacks make up about 80 percent of South Africa’s total population and whites account for about 10 percent. The Behind the Headlines news stories and related World Book articles explore Nelson Mandela and South Africa.
Words to know:
- African National Congress (ANC)
- Apartheid
- Frederik Willem de Klerk
- Nelson Mandela
- Nobel Peace Prize
- Oliver Tambo
- South Africa
- South Africa, Government of
- South Africa, History of
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Discussion Topics:
1. Nelson Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Ask your students to name other famous Nobel Peace Prize winners. (Students might say Jimmy Carter, Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Barack Obama, Lester Pearson, Theodore Roosevelt, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Woodrow Wilson.)
2. Ask your students to debate, “Who is the greatest person living today?” Or, students can debate, “Who is the greatest person who ever lived?”
3. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to create a timeline of Nelson Mandela’s life. (Students may wish to use World Book’s Nelson Mandela article for help.) Or, students may wish to use World Book’s History of South Africa article to help them create a timeline of the history of that country.