I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience.
These powerful words are Nelson Mandela’s address to the court on charges of inciting workers to strike and leaving the country illegally, at the Old Synagogue, Pretoria, South Africa, on November 1962. A powerful and thought-provoking statement.
Mandela was accused on two counts that of inciting persons to strike illegally (during the 1961 stay-at-home) and that of leaving the country without a valid passport. He conducted his own defence.
“Black Man in a White Court”
At the end of this trial, on 7 November 1962, Mandela was convicted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on the charge of incitement and two years for leaving the country without valid travel documents.
“I consider myself neither legally nor morally bound to obey laws made by a parliament in which I have no representation.”
At the close of the trial the crowd ignored a special prohibition on all demonstrations relating to trials and marched through the streets singing a freedom song, ‘Tshotsholoza Tshotsholoza Mandela’, a call to Mandela to continue the struggle