Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid can simply be defined as segregation. Apartheid was a policy of South Africa during the years 1948 and 1994. Because of this policy, those who weren't white didn't have the same rights as white people. They couldn't vote in elections and, until 1990, they also couldn't do things like use the same bathroom or eat at the same places as white people. People of different races couldn't get married or have any sexual relations. Anyone who was against Apartheid was banned. Those who led campaigns to abolish Apartheid were either killed or harassed.

Nelson Mandela is an African man that was in prison for about 27 years. This still didn't stop him from helping his people get to their freedom. He disliked that Africans couldn't have the same rights as white people and he wanted to do something about it. His sentencing, Rivonia Trial, was seen by others as a cruel tactic by the white South African government to silence Nelson Mandela. Not even their cruel tactic stopped Nelson Mandela from achieving his goal. South Africa finally got their freedom and they couldn't thank Nelson Mandela enough. Nelson Mandela is a very admired man because of what he did for his people. He went through many struggles just to free his people and he never gave up. He never lost hope, not even while he was in prison. Nelson Mandela also became the first black president, which was something very memorable.

African Independence

The most significant reason for why Africa changed so much in the 20 year period between 1955 to 1975 was because most countries had gained independence. In the year 1955, the only African countries that had already gained their independence were Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt, and the Union of South Africa. African countries did not want to be under the colonization of Great Britain after World War II, but imperialists weren't making it easy for them since did things like divided up the continent and stolen their valuable resources. With the help of a few good leaders, many African countries finally became independent. After the year 1975, most African countries were independent.

One of the first countries to finally gain their independence from the British was Ghana. Their leader for independence was Kwame Nkrumah. After World War II, the British started allowing more Africans to be nominated to be on the Legislative Council. The thing was that Africans didn't only want to be nominated, but they wanted to be elected representatives. This was when Kwame Nkrumah came in and led the nonviolent protests against the British. He had many strikes and boycotts and even though he was imprisoned frequently by the British, he still led Ghana to their independence.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

Recently, our Global 4 class watched a movie called "The Right Stuff". In this movie, The U.S. and the USSR were competing to see who could build the better space program. The U.S. was very determined to have a better space program than the USSR because the USSR had their own successful space program running. After a brave man volunteered and successfully broke the sound barrier while on the X-1, the location where they accomplished this became the place where they tested and experimented with aircraft in the U.S. The U.S. heard that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, causing them to focus on beating the Soviets in the space race.

The U.S. wanted to find the first astronauts in America to go up into space so they performed all sorts of crazy tests on candidates and those who could endure these tests were chosen. That was the part of the movie that I will remember. I have never seen tests that crazy before. I also did not know that this is what candidates had to go through before fully being able to go into space. I will never forget how many times the U.S. attempted to successfully send of a rocketship. Unfortunately, for the U.S., the Soviet Union beat them in sending astronauts to space. So, the United States had lost the first race. But, soon after, they were competing to see who could be the first to send someone up to the moon. The U.S. had won this race.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

The North Atlantic Treaty Organizaition, NATO, was an organization that consisted of several countries in North America and Europe. It was formed by Europe and North America so that they would have a defense alliance. The reason why they wanted this defense alliance was so that if their opponents attacked any of the countries in their alliance all other countries would come and help them. This organization was especially helpful those countries in Western Europe, not only because they were closer to the USSR territory, but also because they were in bad condition after World War I.

The Warsaw Pact was consisdered a response to NATO. The Warsaw Pact was formed by the USSR and the Communist Easter European countries. Like NATO, it was a mutual defense alliance made to maintain power in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union ran the Warsaw Pact and they gained control of the nations beside them. They also made sure that other nations knew that they were a major political and military force. Unfortunately for them, the Warsaw Pact was labeled nonexistent in 1991 due to many democratic revolutions that occured over time.