18 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Nelson Mandela

11. Along With Oliver Tambo, Mandela Established South Africa's First Black-Run Law Firm

Having studied law at the University of Witwatersrand in central Johannesburg as the only native-African student in 1949, he took on a role at HM Basner law firm in April 1952. After then moving to work as an attorney at the firm Terblanche and Briggish and then at Helman and Michel, he then passed qualification exams to become a fully-fledged lawyer in his own right. As a result, in August 1953, Mandela and his friend Oliver Tambo (pictured above) opened their own law firm - Mandela and Tambo - in downtown Johannesburg, creating the first and only native-Africa-run law establishment in the country. It became extremely popular with aggrieved blacks - and specialised in cases of police brutality - and it was disliked so much by the authorities it was forced to move to a remote location, where business dwindled.