Question

In at least three hundred words, based on the content of nelson mandela's acceptance speech and your knowledge of united states' history, what social and political similarities can you draw between apartheid south africa and the american south during slavery? you may include specific events or historical figures.

Answer 1

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Nelson Mandela said:  "We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people."

Those themes from Mandela's speech could provide you with an outline of concepts for your 300+ word essay.  

Both slavery in America and apartheid in South Africa essentially were the war of one people against another, of whites establishing their dominance over blacks by means of violence and exercises of power.  White society and the political system that supported it could not have stayed in power over blacks without using violence and other means of oppression.  In the process, the rights and dignity and freedom and individuality of black persons continued to suffer repression, and their economic well-being and opportunities for a livable life suffered much impoverishment.   

The whole system (in either case, slavery or apartheid) was based on and built upon racism -- the view that one group of people stands as inherently superior to another, that one color of skin is better than another.  Racist views of humanity are patently false, but have plagued the human experience in many places at many times in human history. 

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Mandela said, "It will not be presumptuous of us if we also add, among our predecessors, the name of another outstanding Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Rev Martin Luther King Jr."  So it seems fitting to close our thoughts here with a resounding thought from one of King's speeches:  "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  Mandela also had such a hopeful dream for South Africa