Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.21
Object Name
t-shirt
Title
'Rhyddid i Nelson Mandela'
Place
South Africa, Xhosa Nation, Wales
People
Nelson Mandela, F. W. de Klerk, Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM)
Events
South Africa apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela imprisoned (1964-1990)
Description
A red t-shirt featuring a black portrait of Nelson Mandela with the Welsh language caption 'Rhyddid i Nelson Mandela'.
This t-shirt, which when translated from Welsh reads 'Freedom for Nelson Mandela' was produced as part of the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) which opposed South African apartheid; a system of institutionalised racial segregation that ensured that the country was dominated politically, socially and economically by the minority white population. The AAM grew into the biggest British pressure group on an international issue, and their campaign to have Nelson Mandela freed from prison was their most well known campaign.
Nelson Mandela was a lawyer, an anti-apartheid political activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). He was jailed for life in 1964 following the Rivonia trial, charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. Mandela served 27 years in prison until international pressure, and fear of a Black South African uprising led Apartheid regime president F. W. de Klerk to release him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk negotiated an end to the apartheid regime, and in 1994 the first free democratic elections which allowed Black South Africans to vote and stand for election on an equal footing with white people were held, during which Mandela was elected President of South Africa, and served until 1999. Mandela died in 2013, aged 95.
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