The Rivonia Trial And Mandela's Life Sentence
- Date
- 1964
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 12 June 1964 a South African court sentenced Nelson Mandela and seven co-defendants to life imprisonment, cementing apartheid's suppression of organised resistance for a generation.
The Rivonia Trial, running from October 1963 to June 1964, followed a police raid on Liliesleaf Farm that captured the leadership of the African National Congress's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, along with plans for sabotage. Rather than plead for mercy, Mandela delivered a four-hour speech from the dock declaring the ideal of a democratic, non-racial society "for which I am prepared to die." Convicted of sabotage and conspiracy, he and comrades including Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki were flown that night to Robben Island, where Mandela was confined to a damp cell barely two metres square and would spend eighteen of his twenty-seven years behind bars. The verdict drove the anti-apartheid struggle underground and into exile, but the trial transformed Mandela into a global emblem of the fight against racial injustice, galvanising international sanctions campaigns that ultimately helped bring the regime down decades later.
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Empires active in 1964
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Dutch Empire1581 CE – 1975 CE
Related politics & governance events
- US Congress Overrides Veto on Anti-Apartheid Sanctions1986
- Nelson Mandela Walks Free1990
- Construction of the Berlin Wall13 August 1961
- Founding of the People's Republic of China1 October 1949
- Iranian RevolutionJanuary–February 1979
- Establishment of Apartheid in South Africa1948
Also relevant
Further reading
The wider story
The Ethiopians: A History
Standard general history of Ethiopia and its dynasties.
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