The early African National Congress consisted mainly of a few educated and politically conscious blacks who made polite protests, fearful of offending white liberal sympathies. United under Nelson Mandela’s world status as the courageous symbol of the struggle of freedom, the ANC was the only internationally recognized organization capable of negotiating with the apartheid government to end the conflict in South Africa. A unique record of the men and women that formed South Africa’s democracy, Heidi Holland chronicles the organization’s painful evolution with special focus on Nelson Mandela and other key figures.