Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who was imprisoned for 27 years and then became a politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. His tragic story of his life is in 1962 he was arrested, convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, initally on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. He was released from Prison because of strong public protesting. Mandela was married three times, fathered six children, had 17 grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren. He could be stern and demanding of his children, although he was more affectionate with his grandchildren. Apartheid was a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party governments, the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights of the majority. Reforms to apartheid in the 1980s failed to quell the mounting opposition, and in 1990 President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid, culminating in multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela. The vestiges of apartheid still shape South African politics and society. Although the official abolishing of apartheid occurred in 1990 with repeal of the last of the remaining apartheid laws, the end of apartheid is widely regarded as arising from the 1994 democratic general elections. He died of a lung infection December 5, 2013 in his home in Johannesburg.
It is important to know figures like him because it is people like him who make a difference in the world, and not just in one country.
It is important to know figures like him because it is people like him who make a difference in the world, and not just in one country.