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Chapter 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Long Walk to Freedom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Division
Negotiation, Democracy, and Progress
Nonviolent Protest vs. Violent Protest
The Value of Optimism
Summary
Analysis
Mandela isn’t sure exactly when he became political, but he believes in some ways that being a Black South African made him political from birth. The world order is changing, with Churchill and Roosevelt signing the Atlantic Charter in 1941, although many don’t believe the promises about democratic principles. The African National Congress (ANC) creates its own charter in response, calling for full citizenship for all African people. Mandela meets a mentor named Walter Sisulu whose home becomes a center for activists. Mandela also meets a charismatic lawyer named Anton Lembede who says that the key for to liberation is for African people to get over an “inferiority complex” and celebrate what makes them beautiful. While spending time with activists at Sisulu’s home, Mandela meets his first wife, Evelyn Mase.
This passage shows how the personal and the political intertwine in Mandela’s life. Many of his lifelong friends, as well as both of his eventual wives, are all people he meets through his activist and political work. The African National Congress, a political party that Mandela will later lead, has ambitious goals for Black life in South Africa that might at first seem unrealistic, given the country’s White-dominated government. But Mandela believes in the ANC from the beginning, reflecting his optimistic personality.
Themes
