AP PHOTO/DEBBIE YAZBEK, NELSON MANDELA FOUNDATION/AP/SIPA
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to anybody and say this has to be done and this has to be done, they’ll say how much? The whole spirit of volunteerism is gone. Circumstances have changed. People go for money now, but not in the olden days. There was the Congress of the People which had 3,000 delegates plus a thousand observers – everything was done by volunteers! People came from all over South Africa, there were no hotels at that time. People opened their houses – they stayed in houses as guests. Madiba had been banned already in 1953 and I had been banned in 1954, but we worked quietly organising this thing, and there was only one motor car that organised this campaign! All these types of things brought us together and taught us this whole thing of volunteerism... that of course you see much later in the prison. THE AFRICA REPORT
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Talk about the time leading up to the Rivonia Trial… The ANC was banned in 1960, and Madiba was asked to go underground. The television interview with the BBC [in 1961] was when he gave the first hint that, with the ANC and individuals banned, our non-violent political struggle had to be strengthened with an armed struggle. That led to the formation of Umkhonto [we Sizwe] – again under his leadership.
Known as ‘Kathy’, Kathrada and Mandela stayed firm friends through the struggle and beyond (here with Zindzi Mandela)
“He could relate to kings and queens, but did not look down on less educated people” Already by 1952 there was a close relationship. There was the Defiance Campaign trial, the Treason Trial between ’56 and ’61, and the Rivonia Trial. There were only three of us who
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were in all three trials – Madiba, Walter [Sisulu] and myself – and that brought us closer together. At the Rivonia Trial, Madiba said we must fight it as a political trial. If you go into the witness box, you don’t apologise, you don’t ask for mercy. In fact you proclaim your political beliefs. If there is genuine evidence against you, you don’t dispute it, but you don’t volunteer evidence that is not there. And when there’s a death sentence you don’t appeal! And he made that famous speech – our speech – which we all approved first. He was speaking on behalf of all of us when he said, “This is what I fought for, hope to achieve, and if need be, I’m prepared to die”. At the end, our lawyers told us to prepare for the worst. Until the very last day, all of us went to court expecting the death sentence.