Mandela was born in Umtata, South Africa, in what is now the Eastern Cape province; Mandela was the son of a Xhosa-speaking Thembu chief. He attended the University of Fort Hare in Alice where he became interested in the political struggle against racial discrimination practiced in South Africa. He was expelled in 1940 for participating in a student demonstration. After moving to Johannesburg, he completed his correspondence courses at the University of South Africa and received a bachelor's degree in 1942. Mandela then studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He became increasingly involved in the African National Congress (ANC), a multiracial nationalist movement that sought to bring about democratic political change in South Africa. Mandela helped found the ANC Youth League in 1944 and became its president in 1951. The National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa in 1948 on a political platform of white supremacy. The official policy of apartheid, or forced segregation of the races, began to be implemented under NP rule. In 1952 the ANC mounted a campaign known as the Defiance Campaign, when protesters across the country refused to obey the laws of apartheid. In the same year Mandela became one of the four vice-presidents of the ANC. In 1952 he and his friend Oliver Tambo were the first blacks to open a law practice in South Africa. Faced with government harassment and the prospect of the ANC being officially banned, Mandela and ...