By now, Mandela had teamed up with his fellow lawyer Oliver Tambo to operate the law firm of Mandela and Tambo, providing free or low-cost legal counsel to many blacks who lacked attorney representation.\n
\nIn 1923, the government introduced a law requiring all blacks to carry a \"pass\" with them at all times. In 1960, this Pass law was extended to women. The ANC organised a protest against the extension due to be held on 31 March 1960. The militant PAC pre-empted the protest by organising a protest of their own on 21 March, at Sharpville. They organised and coerced a crowd of 5,000+ people to join the protest by leaving their passes at home and taunting the police force of 20 people to arrest them. At first, the protest was peaceful. Then the crowd started shouting and throwing stones. The fearful police opened fire. The crowd turned to run. Sixty one unarmed blacks were killed, the large majority of whom were later found to have been shot in the back as they ran away. Many years later, the commanding officer of the police said \"the Native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For them to gather means violence.\" Many of the police officers were young and inexperienced. They will have been aware that a few months earlier, nine police officers were killed by a mob at Cato Manor, an event which had been the culmination of protest and fury at the white appropriation of the entire Cato Manor, with its ancestral homes of thousands of black Africans.\n
\nThe Sharpville massacre shocked Nelson Mandela, along with black Africans in general. Riots and fury followed. It was perhaps the one single event that turned international opinion against the Apartheid regime of South Africa. The government declared a state of emergency and banned ANC. Mandela finally concluded that peaceful protest was no longer open to him and that violent protest was his only option.\n
\nIn 1961, the Sharpville Massacre convinced Mandela that:\n
\n\"Full democratic rights with direct say in the affairs of the government are the inalienable right of every South African - a right which must be realised now if South Africa is to be saved from social chaos and tyranny and from the evils arising out of the existing denial of the franchise of vast masses of the population on the grounds of race and colour.\"\n
\n\n\"The struggle which the national organisations of the non-European people are conducting is not directed against any race or national group. It is against the unjust laws which keep in perpetual subjection and misery vast sections of the population. It is for the creation of conditions which will restore human dignity, equality and freedom to every South African.\"\n
\n\nIn late 1961, Mandela co-founded and led a new group called Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the \"Spear of the Nation\". The group coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets, making plans for a possible guerilla war if the sabotage failed to end Apartheid. Mandela also raised funds for MK abroad and arranged for paramilitary training of the group. Mandela was very specific that the campaign was to be run on the basis that no-one would be hurt. \n
\nIn a subsequent speech, Mandela explained the formation of MK:\n \"Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.\"\n
\nAt its formation, the MK manifesto included:\n \u201cOur men are armed and trained freedom fighters not terrorists.\u201d\n
\n\u201cWe are fighting for democracy--majority rule--the right of the Africans to rule Africa. We are fighting for a South Africa in which there will be peace and harmony and equal rights for all people.\"\n
\n\u201cWe are not racialists, as the white oppressors are. The African National Congress has a message of freedom for all who live in our country.\"\n
", "slide": "Mandela was absolutely committed to a non-violent struggle, although many in the ANC were becoming increasingly militant in the face of the unyielding racism of the white-only government. Through his brilliance and eloquent speeches, Mandela had acquired a great reputation and become a leader of the ANC movement.\n
\nBut in 1961, the government shot dead 61 unarmed and peaceful protesters in an action that shocked the nation. The Sharpville Massacre convinced Mandela that the ANC needed to resort to violence. His key stipulation was that no person should be harmed. By 1962, he was arrested.\n
", "sources": "", "Feedback": "", "title": "The Poltics of Force (1961 - 1964)"}