Nelson Mandela
Rolihlahla Mandela
President and Anti-Apartheid Leader · 1918–2013
Who is Nelson Mandela?
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political prisoner, and statesman who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the country's first head of state elected in a fully representative democratic election. Born in Mvezo in the Eastern Cape and trained as a lawyer, he joined the African National Congress in 1944 and became a leading figure in the campaign against the apartheid government's system of racial segregation. Arrested in 1962, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial and spent 27 years in custody, most of it on Robben Island, becoming an international symbol of resistance to apartheid. Released in 1990, he led negotiations that dismantled apartheid and helped avert civil war, sharing the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk. As president, he championed reconciliation through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and became a global icon of forgiveness, dignity, and moral leadership until his death in 2013.
Sources: Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Little, Brown and Company, 1994) · The Nobel Peace Prize 1993 — NobelPrize.org official record · South African Government official biography, thepresidency.gov.za