Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in Mvezo, in South Africa's Eastern Cape, into the royal family of the Thembu people; a teacher gave him the English name Nelson. After his father's death he was raised by the Thembu regent. He studied at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand and became a lawyer in Johannesburg, opening the country's first Black law firm with Oliver Tambo. He joined the African National Congress and campaigned against apartheid, the system of racial segregation introduced from 1948. In 1961 he co-founded the armed group Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was arrested in 1962 and, at the Rivonia Trial, sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment; his statement from the dock, 'I am prepared to die', became famous. He spent 27 years in prison, mostly on Robben Island. Released in 1990, he negotiated an end to apartheid with President F. W. de Klerk, and the two shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In 1994 he was elected South Africa's first Black president. His autobiography is Long Walk to Freedom (1994). He died in Johannesburg in 2013.

Nelson Mandela is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Baptised a Methodist; he said Communism's atheism conflicted with his Christian faith, though biographers describe his belief as never robust. Source: Wikipedia