Nelson Mandela’s Personal Archive, Just a Click Away

A new digital archive offers a rich and nuanced portrait of South African leader Nelson Mandela.

The collection of thousands of documents chronicling Mandela’s life went online this week.

It includes yellowing handwritten notes smuggled off Robben Island, rare black and white photos of a leader in his youth, diaries, letters and calendars.

It’s all the creation of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory with more than a million dollars from the Goggle Cultural Institute.

Nastasya Tay, a journalist with Radio 702 in Johannesburg, South Africa attended the launch of the new archive and talks with host Marco Werman.

“All of those bits and pieces have been kept and preserved. And they’ve become such a huge part of South Africa’s heritage,” says Tay. “The whole idea of the way that the website was designed – this online archive – was to make it feel like you’re there. So if you can’t come to Johannesburg you can feel like you’re right in front of the documents. It’s really image heavy. You can zoom in and out of all of the documents.”

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: The ANC is the party of Nelson Mandela. He’s now 93 years old and retired from politics, but he remains South Africa’s revered father figure. This week a new digital archive documenting Mandela’s life went live online. Visitors to the website can see everything from rare old pictures of a very young Mandela to digital video clips of their former president. The Nelson Mandela Center of Memory was put together with more than a million dollars donated by Google. Nastasya Tay is a journalist with Radio 702 in Johannesburg. She was at the archive’s official launch.

Nastasya Tay: Well, it’s an amazing collection and it’s all been digitized and put online…really rare photographs to bits of video os speeches that he made to his very own handwritten diaries. It’s a real combination of different elements of his life.

Werman: And on top of the documents and photographs and Nelson Mandela’s own writings, there are also personal interviews with Mr. Mandela. This is a snippet from one of those interviews where the South African leader looks back at his treatment at the hands of the guards during the time he was in prison on Robben Island.

Nelson Mandela: They used to trick us very tough when there was an important visitor coming. They had to relax. They would say oh, no, no, you don’t have to work continuously, you can just take a walk around the quarry. Then we knew visitors were coming. And once the visitors gone, the same quarantine would be modernized and they didn’t compromise at all. We challenge them throughout.

Werman: You know, Nastasya, having been on the site it really looks and feels like a museum. And I guess that speaks to just what stature Mandela had before he was detained and while he was detained. I mean people knew this man was important and s somehow hooked to the destiny of South Africa.

Tay: Absolutely, and all the different bits and pieces are on the archive have been collected by friends and family over the years. I mean it’s really image heavy. If you actually had it on a tablet you can zoom in and out with your fingers. It really feels like you’re kind of turning the pages of the documents that are right in front of you.

Werman: And I have to say just one small detail, Nastasya, Nelson Mandela’s penmanship, extraordinary!

Tay: Absolutely amazing! It’s cursive and yet it’s just so neat. And it just really struck me. I was looking at his calendars, the ones that were kept when he was in prison on Robben Island and he actually keeps durations of his meetings. He actually writes down how many hours and how many minutes they spent talking. I mean he’s just such an organized man and you can really tell that from the documents.

Werman: And so much of this is from a personal point of view from Nelson Mandela. Describe for us maybe one element that really struck you.

Tay: The one thing that was really poignant for me was this amazing letter that he wrote to his two daughters, and in 1969 when he’s on Robben Island, he’s in prison, and his wife at the time, Winnie Mandela, is arrested. And she’s taken away from the two daughters and it’s on this yellowing page. And you can zoom into the letter and read it. And he writes, “My darlings, once again our beloved mummy has been arrested and now she and Daddy are away in jail. Gone are the days of after having a warm bath in the evening you’d sit at table with Mummy and enjoy her good and simple food.” And then he goes on to say at the very end, “Don’t worry, my darlings, we have a lot of friends. They’ll look after you, and one day Mummy and Daddy will return and you’ll no longer be orphans without a home. Then we’ll live peacefully and happily as all normal families do, with lots of love and a million kisses. Yours affectionately, Daddy.”

Werman: Nastasya Tay is a journalist with Radio 702 in Johannesburg, she’s been speaking with us about a new online resource, The Nelson Mandela Center of Memory. For a link just come to theworld.org. Nastasya, very good to speak with you, thanks.

Tay: Thanks very much.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.