Long Walk to Freedom

Near Johannesburg, Mandela sees a gold mine for the first time. Justice and Mandela have made arrangements about a mine job ahead of time through telling only part of the truth to Dr. Xuma, a friend of Jongintaba’s involved with the ANC who promises them work. But the foreman at the mine, Piliso, only has a clerical job for Justice because he wasn’t expecting Mandela to come too. Piliso then gets angry at both of them once he learns that they’re running away from their father. He takes back his offer and refuses a job for either of them. Mandela stays with his cousin, Garlick Mbekeni, for a little while before moving in with a local Anglican preacher, Reverend J. Mabutho, and his wife. Mandela also neglects to tell Mabutho at first that he has run away from home, and the reverend feels that Mandela deceived him.

Reverend Mabutho kicks Mandela out but helps him find a new home with Mr. Xhoma, who is one of the rare Black landowners in the area of Alexandra, near Johannesburg. Mandela begins to work as a clerk at a law firm while studying to finish his B.A. at night at the University of South Africa. Although that fact that the law firm hired an African clerk shows that it was fairly progressive, Mandela still experiences discrimination, like when a white secretary who works under him instructs Mandela to go buy her shampoo. Still, he meets some fellow clerks his age and also begins to socialize at parties where people don’t seem to see skin color.