On this day in 1990, former President Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster prison following 27 years of imprisonment.
The release of Nelson Mandela came 8 days after then-President, FW De Klerk, announced the unbanning of the ANC and other political parties along with the release of Mandela in a speech given at the opening of parliament on the 2nd of February 1990.
Addressing hundreds of people at the Cape Town, City Hall, Nelson Mandela concluded his first public address by quoting his own words from when he stood trial in 1964, stating that the words were as true that day as they were when he first spoke them in 1964.
Mandela stated, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
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