- Student years and protests:
Mandela started school in 1925 at age seven. He was the first person in his family to go to school and his parents could not read or write. At high school he enjoyed studying history and became interested in gardening and sports, becoming a good long-distance runner. After getting his degree from the University of South Africa, Mandela decided to become a lawyer and began studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand. The only black African student in his class, Nelson Mandela suffered a lot of racism from the other students. He began to protest the racist policies of apartheid and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944. In 1952, Mandela gave a speech to a crowd of 10,000 people demonstrating against apartheid and was arrested. Becoming more famous, Nelson was elected to be a regional president of the ANC. In the same year, he and a partner opened their own law office and started defending other black South Africans against police brutality. In 1956, he was arrested again and held in Johannesburg Prison, going to trial in 1958. He was released but continued fighting against apartheid and in 1964 he was imprisoned once more.