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Explore Mandela’s archives online
March 27, 2012
Last year we
announced
a $1.25 million grant to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory to help preserve and digitize thousands of archival documents, photographs and videos about Nelson Mandela. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, the
Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory
(NMCM) is committed to documenting the life and times of one of the world's greatest statesmen and spreading his story to promote social justice throughout the world.
Today, the Mandela archive has become a reality. Along with historians, educationalists, researchers, activists and many others around the world, you can access a wealth of information and knowledge about the life and legacy of this extraordinary African leader. The
new online multimedia archive
includes Mandela’s correspondence with family, comrades and friends, diaries written during his 27 years of imprisonment, and notes he made while leading the negotiations that ended apartheid in South Africa. The archive will also include the
earliest-known photo of Mr. Mandela
and
never-before seen drafts
of Mr. Mandela's manuscripts for the sequel to his autobiography
Long Walk to Freedom
.
We’ve worked closely with the NMCM to create an interactive online experience which we hope will inspire you as much as us. You can search and browse the archives to explore different parts of Mandela’s life and work in depth:
Early Life
,
Prison Years
,
Presidential Years
,
Retirement
,
Books for Mandela
,
Young People
and
My Moments with a Legend
.
For example, you might be interested in Nelson Mandela’s personal memories of the time he was incarcerated and click into the
Prison Years
exhibit. You can immediately see a curated set of materials threaded together into a broader narrative. These include handwritten notes on his
desk calendars
, which show, for example, that he met President F.W. De Klerk for the first time on December 13, 1989 for two and a half hours in prison; the
Warrants of Committal
issued by the Supreme Court which sent him to prison; the earliest known
photo of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell
on Robben Island circa 1971; and a
personal letter
written from prison in 1963 to his daughters, Zeni and Zindzi, after their mother was arrested, complete with transcript.
From there, you might want to see all the letters held by the archive, and click “See more” in the letters category, where you can discover
all personal letters
or use the time filter to explore his
diaries and calendars
written between 1988 and 1998, where you can see that in the
last page
of the last diary, he met with President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda to exchange ideas about the situation in northern Uganda. If you were a researcher, you can search through various fragments of
Madiba’s
memory that relate to
Ahmed Kathrada
, his long-time comrade, politician and anti-apartheid activist, where you can find photos, videos, manuscripts and letters that relate to him.
Finally, by clicking into the exhibit,
My Moments with a Legend
, you can go beyond Madiba’s personal materials to get a diverse perspective through photos, videos and stories, via the memories of people like
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
,
F.W. De Klerk
and
Nomfundo Walaza
, a community worker.
The Nelson Mandela Digital Archive project is an initiative by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and the
Google Cultural Institute
, which helps to preserve and promote our diverse cultural and historical heritage. Some of our other initiatives include the
Art Project
, digitizing the
Dead Sea Scrolls
and bringing the
Yad Vashem
Holocaust materials online.
You can start exploring the Nelson Mandela archive right now at archive.nelsonmandela.org. We hope you’ll be inspired by this influential leader—the face of South Africa’s transition to democracy.
Posted by Mark Yoshitake, Product Manager, Google’s Cultural Institute
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