Nelson Mandela recollecting with Verne Harris

The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory collaborated with the National Archives to collate and provide access to a selection of documents from the official archive, along with elements of the Mandela Prison Archive from other sources.

When viewing these materials as a whole in addition to Mandela's recollections, we are able to see the personal records that Mandela generated, how the prison authorities sought to contain it, and how, in their efforts to exert control, they in turn built up an enormous record of their own, the totality of which comprises the Prison Archive at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory.