The backroom boy : Andrew Mlangeni's story /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Mathebula, Mandla, author.
Imprint:Johannesburg : Wits University Press, 2018.
Description:1 online resource (xv, 218 pages) : PDF file(s).
Language:English
Subject:Mlangeni, Andrew, -- 1925-2020.
African National Congress -- History.
African National Congress.
Political prisoners -- South Africa -- Robben Island -- Biography.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Political
Political prisoners.
South Africa -- Robben Island.
Electronic books.
Biographies.
History.
Electronic books.
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11912400
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781776140879
1776140877
9781776140862 (paperback)
Notes:Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 24 Apr 2018).
Summary:The Backroom Boy opens dramatically in China, 1962. Andrew Mlangeni is one of a small select group undergoing military training there. The unannounced visitor is Mao Tse-Tung or Chairman Mao as he was known, Chairman of the Communist Party of China. Mlangeni was selected as one of the first-ever six members who received military training in China before the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He seems to have been chosen because he was a dedicated, intelligent and dependable operative, rather than a leader. Even after his release after 25 years on Robben Island, Mlangeni was not given a senior position in the post-apartheid democratic government. {u2018}I was always the backroom boy,{u2019} says Andrew Mlangeni about himself. Andrew Mlangeni, is a struggle stalwart, Rivonia Trialist, and Robben Island prisoner 467/64 who was next door inmate to Nelson Mandela{u2019}s acclaimed 466/64 prison number. Released after 26 years of incarceration, he served as Member of Parliament, and is Chairman of the ANC{u2019}s Integrity Commission and Founder of the June and Andrew Mlangeni Foundation. With the passing of Ahmed Kathrada (March 2017), Mlangeni (91) is one of only two Rivonia Trialist still alive with Denis Goldberg. While still at school, Andrew Mlangeni joined the Communist Party of South Africa and also the ANC Youth League. These were the organisations that shaped his values. Decades of resourceful activism were to lead to his arrest and life sentence in the Rivonia trial. Mlangeni{u2019}s lifelong commitment to the struggle for liberation reverberates with other biographies and memoirs of leading figures, such as Rusty Bernstein{u2019}s Memory Against Forgetting and Albie Sachs{u2019} We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge. This story of an ANC elder is a well-researched historical record overlaid with intensely personal refl ections which intersect with the political narrative. Above all, it is one man{u2019}s story, set in the maelstrom of the liberation struggle. This biographical project has been developed for, and published in conjunction with, the June and Andrew Mlangeni Foundation.
Other form:Print version: 9781776140862