Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid leader, a prisoner for more than 27 years, and the first Black president of South Africa (1994–99). Born into the Madiba clan at Mvezo in the Eastern Cape, he was expelled from Fort Hare after a student protest, joined the ANC in 1944, helped found its Youth League and, with Oliver Tambo, South Africa's first Black law firm. After the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 and the banning of the ANC, he helped establish the armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe, went underground, and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial in 1964. Released on 11 February 1990, he negotiated the end of apartheid with President F.W. de Klerk; the two shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. He voted for the first time in his life in April 1994, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994, stepped down in 1999, and died at his home in Johannesburg on 5 December 2013.