Nelson Mandela

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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 in the Transkei region of South Africa. After his father died when Nelson was nine years old, he lived with the local chief, who sent him to school. After he left Fort Hare University in 1941, he went to Johannesburg. In 1944, he helped found the African National Congress Youth League. He was soon a leader in the group. The government saw him as a threat to their policy of Apartheid, and they made it very hard for him to keep leading. He was put in jail for this in 1964. In 1990, everyone was happy that he was released from prison after 27 years. He got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 together with former President Frederik Willem de Klerk. He became president of South Africa from 10 May 1994 until 1999.

Even though he wanted to free South Africa without violence, when the government started killing and hurting protestors, he started Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as "Spear of the Nation", also abbreviated as MK) with Walter Sisulu and other members of the African National Congress.

Mandela is a hero in South Africa and in most of the world because of his struggle to end Apartheid. He is also a symbol of racial equality.

In 2003 he won the Nobel peace Prize with this speech:

"We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people."

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