Mandela House, Soweto

Explore the REAL Johannesburg

MANDELA HOUSE, SOWETO

If you hope to learn something about Nelson Mandela’s life during his time here, you really will need a guide as there is nothing of significance that helps you understand this period of his life!

My first visit to 8115 Vilakazi Street, was in 1998.
I was in Soweto, heading to a shebeen, to watch Bafana Bafana (the name of the South African national soccer team) play Saudi Arabia in the FIFA World Cup.

I was the only visitor in his home, and the experience was warm and intimate.
I felt honoured to be there – like being an invited guest.
This was his home!

Today, the house is cluttered with every knick-knack bearing his name, but nothing to do with his home.

My first visit was also the time when the area still felt like Soweto.
A time before the same tasteless development permeated Vilakazi Street.
Recently constructed buildings – so unsympathetic to their environment, extortionate restaurants, overpriced curios, fake traditional dancers and aggressive ‘car guards’, all add to this tourist-trap.

The home was closed for nearly a year in April 2008, and re-developed at a cost of R9 million (R20 million equivalent in 2024), as The Mandela House.
The home was virtually demolished – the roof was removed and walls knocked down – including one internal wall, which was so much a part of the history of the house – that Winnie Mandela had built as a shield to protect the family from police bullets!

Today, it still retains the brick and mortar structure that Nelson Mandela moved into with his first wife, Evelyn Mase in 1946 – but unfortunately little else!

It has tragically lost all of its soul, and today is no longer the home where Nelson Mandela lived on-and-off for 16 years.
It is sadly a monument to where his home once stood!

Today, Vilakazi Street could be any street, in any town, in any country – anywhere in the world, if it wasn’t for the fact that both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who were both recipients of the Noble Peace Prize, lived in the same street!.

NELSON MANDELA’S EARLY DAYS IN JOHANNESBURG

Nelson Mandela, world leader and citizen of Johannesburg, was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election.
He was the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

He first came to Johannesburg in April 1941, after fleeing an arranged marriage, at his birthplace, in what is now the Eastern Cape – then the Transkei in the Union of South Africa.
He was 22 years old.

NELSON MANDELA’S FIRST MARRIAGE

In his early days in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela lived in Alexandra township, but after meeting Evelyn Ntoko Mase, a nurse, and marrying her 1944, he moved into House 8115, Vilakazi Street, Orlando, Soweto in 1946.
Three of their 4 children were born in the house.

Evelyn Mase, a converted Jehovah’s Witness, was a homebody and had no interest in politics.
She made a demand in 1955, that her husband of 11 years, either gave up politics, or she would leave him.
They separated in 1956.
He and Evelyn Mase were divorced in March 1958.

NELSON MANDELA’S SECOND MARRIAGE

Nelson Mandela then married Nomzamo Winifred ‘Winnie’ Zanyiwe Madikizela, a qualified social worker, in June 1958.
He had two daughters with her in the house.

After he left the house in 1961 to go into hiding, Winnie Mandela became a symbol of resistance against apartheid.
She endured harassment and trauma at the hands of the police, and the house itself became a hub for activists and a symbol of the ongoing fight for freedom.

Link to the Mandela House Museum website