CBSE Class 10 Board Examination

Chapter 2: Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Summary

This extract from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography describes the historic day in 1994 when he was sworn in as the first black President of a democratic South Africa, ending centuries of white minority rule and the system of apartheid. Mandela reflects on the long and painful struggle against racial oppression and pays tribute to the countless heroes, known and unknown, who sacrificed their lives for freedom. He speaks of the twin obligations every person has — to family and to people — and how apartheid made it impossible to fulfil both. Mandela argues that no one is born hating another because of skin colour; hatred is learned, and so love can be taught instead. He defines true courage not as the absence of fear but as the triumph over it, and concludes that a free society must liberate both the oppressed and the oppressor, for a man who takes away another’s freedom is himself a prisoner of hatred.

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