Nelson Mandela Foundation Audio Guide: Village boy to President

The Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg preserves the legacy of South Africa’s most celebrated leader.

On this self-guided tour, you’ll explore the permanent exhibition that chronicles Mandela’s journey from rural chief’s son to political prisoner, to president. As you move through the exhibition, you’ll also discover how centuries of colonial oppression gave way to democracy, and how one man came to symbolize that transformation.

Starting at the entrance on Central Street in Houghton, you’ll pass through the reception area and into the permanent exhibition space. You’ll encounter powerful quotes, including the famous “Ndiwelimilambo enamagama” (I have crossed famous rivers), and walk through panels documenting colonialism, the rise of apartheid, and Mandela’s evolution from Africanist youth to non-racialist leader. The exhibition traces his work with OR Tambo in South Africa’s only black law firm in the 1950s, his leadership of the 1952 Defiance Campaign, and his role as Umkhonto we Sizwe’s first commander.

You’ll stand inside a glass replica of Mandela’s Robben Island cell, where he spent eighteen years of his twenty-seven-year imprisonment, and examine the jackal skin kaross he carried during his 1962 trial as a symbol of defiance. The tour culminates in Mandela’s preserved personal office, which he used from 2002 to 2010 – and which remains exactly as he left it. The tour ends at the parking area where a vintage car from the film Long Walk to Freedom marks the spot that represents his 1962 arrest near Howick.

On this 45-minute tour, you’ll have a chance to:

• See fragments from the hut in Mvezo where Mandela was born in 1918, alongside his Methodist Sunday school membership cards
• Discover how Mandela learned Afrikaans while imprisoned, writing that understanding “the language of the oppressor” was essential to knowing your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses
• View his Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma, awarded in 1993
• Examine correspondence from his presidency, including notes taken during the first session of parliament on 25 May 1994
• Read pages from CODESA negotiations and letters exchanged with FW de Klerk
• Test your knowledge with an interactive quiz about Mandela’s life

This tour offers an intimate encounter with the spaces where Mandela worked after his presidency, surrounded by artifacts that tell the story of South Africa’s long walk to freedom.