South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela died December 5, 2013 at his home surrounded by his family. His death, at age 95, was announced by President Jacob Zuma.
President Barack Obama made this televised statement: “A man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice. We will not see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. It falls to us to carry forward the example that he set. A free South Africa at peace with itself, an example to the world – that is Madiba’s legacy to the nation he loved.”
In 1952, Nelson Mandela emerged onto the national stage when he helped organize the first country-wide protests called the Defiance Campaign. A decade later he was sent to prison on a charge of inciting a strike.
At his trial he said, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
He endured 27 years of hard labor in a lime quarry before receiving his freedom. He went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for his leadership in ending apartheid without violence.
Mandela become South Africa’s first black president (1994-1999). He later became an elder statesman who inspired millions of people around the world. He concentrated on his philanthropic foundation – speaking out on AIDS, which had ravaged his country. In addition, he raised millions for humanitarian causes.
He retired from public life in 2004 but surfaced for his 90th birthday with a star-studded concert in London’s Hyde Park.
The former leader’s health deteriorated in 2013, with many months spent at a Pretoria hospital for a recurring lung infection.
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