Which university did Nelson Mandela attend before leaving after a student protest in 1940?

Nelson Mandela attended the University of Fort Hare before leaving after a student protest in 1940.

Fort Hare, in Alice in the Eastern Cape, was one of the few institutions in southern Africa that offered higher education to Black students during the apartheid era’s predecessor systems. Mandela enrolled in 1939 to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree. He studied English, anthropology, politics, “native administration,” and Roman-Dutch law.

In 1940, Mandela and Oliver Tambo became involved in a student protest over the composition of the Students’ Representative Council. When the university required him to choose between accepting the council result and leaving, Mandela chose to leave. He did not complete his degree there.

Mandela later continued his education through the University of South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand. Fort Hare nevertheless remained important in the history of African political leadership: many prominent future leaders studied there, including Oliver Tambo, Robert Mugabe, and Kenneth Kaunda.