Elementary Unit 6 DVD script
N = Narrator D = de Klerk NC = Newscaster M = Mandela DT = Desmond
Tutu
N: Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in Qunu, a small village in South Africa.
When Mandela was nine years old, his father died. Mandela went to school and then
in 1937 went to university, and after university, he went to Johannesburg. In
Johannesburg he saw apartheid, the segregation of blacks and whites. He lived in a
poor black township and saw the terrible life of black people in the city. This
experience changed his life. In 1944, Mandela joined the ANC, the African National
Congress. This was the start of the road to becoming a leader in the fight against
apartheid.
He finished his studies and became a lawyer in 1952. He was more and more active
in the fight against apartheid, and in 1962 the government put Mandela in prison. He
spent twenty-seven years in prison. While Mandela was in prison, the fight against
apartheid continued and people around the world called for Mandela’s release.
Finally, the President of South Africa, F.W. de Klerk decided to release Mandela.
D: I wish to put it plainly, that the government has taken a firm decision to release Mr.
Mandela unconditionally.
N: Mandela finally left prison in February 1990.
NC: There's Mr. Mandela, Mr. Nelson Mandela, a free man, taking his first steps into a
new South Africa.
N: But peace didn't come easily. It was a dangerous time, Mandela called for peace, but
not everybody wanted peace.
M: Take your guns, your knives and your pangas and throw them into the sea.
I said, 'If I am your leader, you have to listen to me. And if you don't want to listen to
me, then drop me as a leader.'
N: Four years after Mandela left prison, there were elections for president. For the first
time, blacks voted in a free election.
DT: People can't believe it when you say, 'Hey, I'm free! I'm free!' and you're walking tall.
N: And on May the 10th, 1994, Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.
M: I, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, do hereby swear to be faithful to the Republic of South
Africa.
N: In his five years as president, Mandela worked to bring peace between blacks and
whites. Then, in 1999, he retired, but he didn't stop working. For the next five years,
he travelled around the world and raised money for children, education and medical
research.
Not long before his death, he visited the family grave. He said that when he died, he
wanted to be buried in Qunu, his childhood home.
Nelson Mandela died on December the 5th, 2013, at the age of ninety-five.
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