No Easy Walk to Freedom

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the below bulleted outlines. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Apartheid policy exacerbated economic inequality and was designed to keep Black South Africans in a perpetual state of poverty and servitude to the minority white population.

• What economic aspects of the anti-apartheid struggle does Mandela identify? (topic sentence)
• Provide at least 3 examples of apartheid policy and how they each contributed to the poverty and servitude of the Black population.
• In your concluding paragraph, explain how the economic impact of apartheid contributed to Mass Mobilization and/or Shifts in Strategy in the form of the noncooperation campaign.

2. The Nationalist government responded to nonviolent protests with excessive violence and force and created an atmosphere of violence in South Africa.

• How did the government response to nonviolent tactics lead to the organization of Umkonto we Sizwe? (topic sentence)
• Discuss at least 3 instances of government action that illustrate their violent response to nonviolent protests.
• In your concluding paragraph, explain how the ANC’s concern about the atmosphere of violence led to the establishment of Umkonto and the ANC’s Relationship to the new organization.

3. The government’s measures and tactics, including apartheid policy, were an effort to repress the resistance movement.  

• What types of policies and measures did the government use to try and suppress the anti-apartheid struggle? (topic sentence)
• Provide 3 examples of government measures and explain how they attempted to repress the mass struggle.
• In your concluding paragraph, discuss why the attempted repression was ineffective and relate it to the resistance movement’s Shifts in Strategy.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Consider Chapter 1’s discussion of the Defiance Campaign, the “M” Plan, and government repression alongside later discussions of the 1949 Programme of Action and Shifts in the resistance movement. Explain the relationship between the Programme of Action and Mandela’s 1953 speech, as well as how the implementation of the Programme of Action informs his later writings and speeches.

2. The ANC’s Relationship to Other Political Parties and organizations indicates that Mass Mobilization and Unity is an effective strategy for defeating a common enemy. What evidence in the text indicates common rallying points for most of the South African population? How did multiracialism, interclass solidarity, and multi-political commonality play into the Mass Mobilization strategy? 

3. Mandela emphasizes that Shifts in Strategies and Tactics are politically responsible and that political leaders have a duty to recognize and respond to concrete conditions to represent the people who look to political organizations for leadership. What evidence in the text indicates this dynamism, responsiveness, and sound political leadership? How does the establishment of Umkonto we Sizwe indicate that the ANC was not only concerned with defeating the Nationalist government, but also with protecting the masses of people that the ANC represented? In what ways did Mandela continue to demonstrate such dynamism and responsiveness after his release from prison and his ascendancy to the presidency of South Africa?