Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. Born Rolihlahla Mandela, 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013. Was a South African anti apartheid activist, politician, & statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state & the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist & socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress. ANC party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, He was born into the Thembu Royal Family in Mvezo, South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare & the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti colonial & African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 & co founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party’s white only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, He & the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC’s Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign & the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities & was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party, SACP. Although initially committed to non violent protest, in association with the SACP he co founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 after the Sharpeville massacre & led a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government. He was arrested & imprisoned in 1962, &, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state. Subsequently, the United States designated Him a terrorist until 2008. He served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison & Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic & international pressure & fears of racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990.
He & de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Nelson Mandela led the ANC to victory & became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution,
He emphasized reconciliation between the country’s racial groups & created the Truth & Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor’s liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty & expand healthcare services. Internationally, He acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial & served as secretary general of the Non Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term & was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. He became an elder statesman & focused on combating poverty & HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Nelson Mandela was considered to be a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist & those on the far left deemed him too eager to negotiate & reconcile with apartheid’s supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Globally regarded as an icon of democracy & social justice, he received more than 250 honor’s, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, & described as the, Father of the Nation.
