“A leader is someone who demonstrates what is possible” - Mark Yarnell and Nelson Mandela is living proof. During his darkest moments in prison, Nelson Mandela was driven by the power of words to motivate and inspire. The simple lines from a poem written by William Ernest Henley, inspired Nelson Mandel to, after almost thirty years in Prison, become “the Masters of our fate, the captains of our souls.” (William E. Henly, 2012)
Nelson Mandela was born the fourth son of the Chief of the Tembu tribe on July 18, 1918 in Transkei, South Africa and from the beginning he describes that his childhood was a “form of apprenticeship shaped by knowledge of his ‘destiny’, in which he would ascend to office as the key counsellor to the Tembu chiefdom.” (Lodge, 2006) Ironically, Mandela’s name given at birth was Rolihlahla; roughly translated as ‘troublemaker’. As a young man he was always fighting for South Africa’s cause, and by doing good for the people, trouble always seemed to follow him (Lodge, 2006).
At the age of nineteen, Mandela enrolled in Fort Hare University, where he began studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree (Lodge, 2006). While at the school, he became involved in the local politics in the school and was eventually asked to leave. Soon after being expelled from Fort Hare, Mandela moved to Johannesburg, where he met a man named Walter Sisulu, whom Mandela would come to form a lifelong friendship with (Lodge, 2006). Sisulu was so impressed with Mandela upon meeting him that he got him the job at the law firm, Witkin, Sidelsky and Edelman, where he eventually, through correspondence, obtained his BA from the University of South Africa in 1942 (Lodge, 2006).
During his time in Johannesburg was when Mandela first started getting heavily involved in national politics. In 1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a party dedicated to fighting for the