It wasn’t the moral persuasion of Mandela that ended Apartheid though.

It was the moral persuasion of Mandela that ended apartheid in South Africa as we would recognize it. It's not a fringe opinion that without Mandela's leadership, South Africa had a very good chance of descending into civil war instead of a multiparty democracy.

It was a sustained isolation and economic boycott combined with mass action, that the state would consider violent, like breaking the barrier and occupy places, which led to massacres like the Bisho massacre that subsequentlty increased pressure for negotiations, because people were absolutely not going to stay put with being massacred.

... the Bisho massacre was performed by the security troops of a Black-dominated Bantustan attempting to resist reintegration into the central government (though at the demand of the ANC), not by the white-dominated central government.

While the massacre did increase pressure for negotiations, it did so because parties wished reduce the risk of violence escalating into a civil war, with Mandela greatly reducing the ANC's demands in the massacre's wake and restarting negotiations with the government, not because the massacre improved the position of the oppressed by stoking passions.

I feel like the story of the end of Apartheid South Africa is told in a very whitewashed version to undermine the importance of direct mass action, including responding to government violence by fighting back.

Responding to government violence by fighting back is important. But it is also important to recognize that Mandela's work in prison and after his release was largely oriented around moral persuasion as an alternative to violence - not because violence was completely off the table if things went sour, but because he did consider moral persuasion as having a greater capacity to achieve the goals of the ANC. And his work after his release from prison is one of the most stunning examples of what genuine appeals to the moral sense of a population - even one as steeped in racism as white Afrikaaners under the apartheid regime - are capable of doing.

Mandela wasn’t some mythical figure that came and solved things by the mgaic of his words. It was the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people in South Africa and beyond that brought an end to Apartheid and it was not in the terms of what the state defines as “peaceful”.

Downplaying Mandela's very significant contribution and leadership are not really a good alternative. Apartheid was going to end, sure - but there was no guarantee that South Africa wouldn't end with it.