5 MAY: A Johannesburg building where Nelson Mandela practised law before his historic jailing has been refurbished and will become a museum.
Renovations costing nearly $1m were unveiled yesterday.
Mandela and partner Oliver Tambo launched the city’s first black-owned law firm in 1952, offering free or low-cost legal advice to black South Africans.
"It was a place where they (the black majority) could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin colour", Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo told media at yesterday’s unveiling.
The firm closed in 1960 as Mandela and Tambo became more involved in politics - and just four years before Mandela’s jailing at the end of the infamous Rivonia trial.
Mr Masondo said the building will house a museum and an archive of the work of the two men.
