The release of Nelson Mandela from the Victor Verster Prison in Cape Town on 11 February 1990 was the most striking symbol of the end of apartheid in South Africa. His dramatic walk from the gates of the prison, hand in hand with his wife Winnie, captured the world’s imagination. Mandela had been a prisoner for 27 years, arrested in 1962 and convicted in 1964 of conspiring to overthrow the state. For 18 of those years, Mandela endured the harsh conditions of Robben Island. By the late 1970s the almost invisible prisoner had become a symbol of South African oppression. During the 1980s ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ became a worldwide campaign. His release was an act of political courage by the new South African president, FW de Klerk. But de Klerk’s decision, and its timing, were the culmination of decades of political, economic and social change that had brought apartheid to the brink of destruction.