Mandela: Struggle for Freedom
When
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Where
Who can attend
Limited capacity: Registration Closed
Price
Mandela: Struggle for Freedom traces the history of the fight against apartheid in South Africa, with Nelson Mandela as one of its central figures. With immersive environments, Mandela promotes human rights with a clear message: all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
This special exhibit was developed by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Winnipeg, Canada) in partnership with the Apartheid Museum (Johannesburg, South Africa). The virtual tour is provided by the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Nelson Mandela was one of the most famous human rights defenders of the 20th-century and the face of a movement against racial injustice. His unbreakable will inspired people around the globe to mobilize for human rights and contributed to a worldwide crusade demanding racial equality. A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994, Mandela devoted his life to fighting apartheid and creating a more just society.
Among its many dramatic features and original artifacts, the exhibition replicates the eight-foot by seven-foot cell where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail, before emerging at age 71 to continue negotiating democratic change with his former enemies. Visitors entering the cell will find themselves in a multimedia theatre, with projections telling stories of repression and resilience on the walls.
Exhibition highlights:
- The scene of Mandela’s first TV interview in 1961, in a clandestine apartment location, recreated in front of the actual film footage (the Widlake interview). A “covert” area in this gallery zone features hidden objects, peepholes, and coded phone messages.
- Tanks against trash-can lids, music, rhythmic toyi-toyi dancing, and rich “shweshwe” fabrics enliven the story of action and uprising. A massive, tank-like truck emerges from one wall, where visitors can grab a trash-can lid as their only protection, like students in the Soweto uprising.
- Original artifacts, including a battered ballot box used in the country’s first democratic elections in 1994 when Mandela became president; a letter in Mandela’s own hand, sent from prison to a leader of anti-apartheid mobilization; a notepad Mandela used during democracy negotiations; and a message Mandela wrote in the Canadian Senate during a visit shortly after his release from prison in 1990.