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Chapter 79
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Long Walk to Freedom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Division
Negotiation, Democracy, and Progress
Nonviolent Protest vs. Violent Protest
The Value of Optimism
Summary
Analysis
Mandela hears a rumor about an uprising on June 16, 1976, after some of the young people arrested in the uprising end up at Robben Island. A group of 15,000 schoolchildren came to Soweto to protest the policy of teaching in Afrikaans. New prisoners are appalled by the bad conditions and see Mandela and those like him as too moderate. Mandela learns that many of them are part of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), which has helped get young people into politics. Mandela finds them inspiring, although he disagrees on their policy of focusing on Blackness rather than all races. Physical fights break out among ANC, PAC, and BCM, but Mandela tries to promote unity.
Afrikaans is a language that evolved from Dutch, and so teaching Afrikaans in schools is a method of trying to bring European culture into South Africa—something the schoolchildren do not want, as they’d like to see South Africa be its own, distinctly African country. Although Mandela was once part of the activist wing of the ANC, his experience with meeting the new, younger prisoners shows how Mandela’s views have gradually evolved to focus more on celebrating incremental gains. The fights in prison among ANC, PAC, and BCM foreshadow future violence.
Themes
