Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison

Updated: 17 Feb 2020

Nelson Mandela was issued with his first South African passport on 19 February 1990, 8 days after he was released from prison. It was this passport (with his second name "Rolihlahla" spelt incorrectly as "Rolilahla") that he used to embark on a tour of some of the African states that had supported the South African liberation struggle, including Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Nadja Manghezi, who was working at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania in March 1990, made the photograph on the left of Mr Mandela's passport, available to the Nelson Mandela Foundation Archive.

How we know this

01Nelson Mandela Foundation,"Nelson Mandela’s Tanzania trips revisited", From: Nelson Mandela Foundation,[Online],Available at: www.nelsonmandela.org, [Accessed on: 28 January 2014]

Last updated · 17 Feb 2020

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012862

South African History Online (2011) 'Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012862 (Accessed: 12 October 2026).

South African History Online, Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012862, (accessed 12 October 2026).

"Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012862. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.

South African History Online. "Nelson Mandela was issued with his first passport after being released from prison." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012862.