No Easy Walk to Freedom

Ato Quayson (1961-Present) is a Ghanaian literary critic. He received his undergraduate degree with honors in English and Arabic from the University of Ghana, and he received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 2005. The publisher of six monographs and eight edited volumes, Quayson’s work emphasizes African and postcolonial studies and literature. From 1995 to 2005, he was a reader in commonwealth and postcolonial studies in the English department at Cambridge, where he also served as director of African studies. Quayson has held leading positions in the African Studies Association, and he was a professor of postcolonial literature at New York University. He currently teaches interdisciplinary studies and English at Stanford University. 

Quayson is a key figure because he wrote the Introduction to No Easy Walk to Freedom. In it, he shares two personal experiences that register the significance of Mandela’s speeches, letters, and writings for him. He emphasizes that Mandela’s speeches and essays demonstrate that he was a “great strategist, with a finely tuned sense of political nuance and an amazing intellectual fervor” (ix). While Quayson tries to keep editorial notes to a minimum, the brief notes he provides on each chapter contextualize the essays, speeches, and writings. He also provides a chronology of important dates from 1899 to 1963, outlining the main events that took place during Mandela’s writing. Concluding the Introduction, Quayson expresses his hope that the collection will be read as a “historical process that culminated in the freeing of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the holding of the first multi-racial General Elections in South Africa in 1994” (xvi).

Oliver Tambo (1917-1993) was a South African politician, revolutionary, teacher, and lawyer. He was also a close friend and comrade to Mandela. They met during their enrollment at the University of Fort Hare, from which they were both expelled for participation in a student strike. Together they opened a law firm in Johannesburg upon completion of their law degrees in 1953. Tambo penned the 1964 Foreword to No Easy Walk to Freedom, in which he notes his and Mandela’s forcible removal from the law firm’s office upon passage of the Group Areas Act.

Tambo, along with Mandela and others, formed the ANC Youth League in 1944 and played an influential role in shifting the ANC towards a more militant political strategy that included boycotts, strikes, demonstrations, and protests. Having been banned by the government in 1959, Tambo was exiled to London for 30 years, where he mobilized international ANC support and organized the guerilla units of Umkonto. He served as the president of the ANC from 1967 until 1991, stepping down due to poor health. Tambo’s legacy lives on in South Africa, and his grave was declared a National Heritage Site.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was an Indian anticolonial nationalist, humanist, social democrat, and author. He is considered the “architect of modern India.” Educated in England and trained in law, politics, economics, history, literature, and natural science, Nehru returned to India in the 1920s, where he joined the Indian National Congress and promoted independence from Britain and the establishment of India as a secular nation-state. Having been the principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s, Nehru became the interim prime minister of India from 1947 to 1950, going on to serve as prime minister from 1950 to 1964. 

The title of No Easy Walk to Freedom comes from an article penned by Nehru and published in The Unity of India in 1941 (xii). In Chapter 1, Mandela quotes Nehru, writing that “there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintops of our desires” (13). Mandela’s use of Nehru’s quote exemplifies the inspiration that Mandela received from various national struggles against imperialism, including those outside of Africa, as well as the diversity of his political influences.

Albert J. Luthuli (1898-1967) was a South African teacher, minister, activist, and political leader. Prior to his involvement with the ANC, Luthuli served as chief to the Christian branch of the Zulu tribe. In this position, he practiced Ubuntu, a philosophy based on the recognition of all people’s humanity and interdependence, and was lauded for his democratic, wise, empathetic, and responsive leadership. Along with Mandela and Tambo, he joined the ANC in 1944, going on to become the ANC’s elected president from 1952 until 1967. The National government attempted to force his resignation in 1952, but Luthuli refused to step down, gaining support from the masses for his display of defiance. He rose to national prominence during the Defiance Campaign, which Mandela discusses in Chapter 1. 

Luthuli also organized the Congress of the People (COP) that adopted the Freedom Charter. Mandela opens Chapter 6 with a quote from Luthuli emphasizing the uniqueness and significance of the COP. Mandela also discusses Luthuli’s letters to the government in Chapter 14 to illustrate the “statesmanlike and correct behaviour” of leaders like Luthuli (131), who tried legal and peaceful means of persuading the government to meet the demands of the people. Mandela draws a parallel between the government’s failure to acknowledge Luthuli’s earlier letters and the letters Mandela himself penned on behalf of the NAC to Verwoerd.

Hendrik F. Verwoerd (1901-1966) was a white South African politician who is considered to be the “architect of apartheid.” The authoritarian and Afrikaner nationalist leader was influential in the Nationalist Party’s rise to power in 1948, after which apartheid policy intensified. He served as minister of affairs from 1950 to 1958. Mandela discusses Verwoerd’s Bantu education policy as minister of native affairs in Chapter 5. In the chapter, he draws parallels between the South African regime and Hitlerite Germany, noting that Verwoerd studied in German universities. Verwoerd was a vocal advocate of Hitlerite Germany during World War II.

Verwoerd became prime minister in 1958 and remained in the position until his assassination in 1966; this political prominence causes him to feature throughout No Easy Walk to Freedom. Under Verwoerd’s leadership, the NP declared South Africa a constitutional republic in 1961, leading directly to the campaign of noncooperation when he failed to call the national convention that the masses demanded. Mandela directly attacks “Verwoerd’s tribalism” in the Chapter 8 discussion of Bantustan policy. The violent and repressive tactics and policies of Verwoerd’s government also led to the UN General Assembly Resolution 1761, which condemned apartheid and prompted South Africa’s international diplomatic and economic isolation.