Nelson Mandela

 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/maen'del@Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/maen'del@; Xhosa [xolilala Mande:la]; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who was the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was also the country's first president of a black race and also the first to be elected in a democratically constituted election. The government he led was focused on eradicating the legacy of apartheid through creating a culture of reconciliation between the races. He was a socialist and an African nationalist from 1991 until 1997. Before becoming an Johannesburg lawyer, he studied law at the University of Fort Hare as in the University of Witwatersrand. He was active in anti-colonial politics and African nationalist politics in Johannesburg. He joined the ANC in 1943 and was a co-founder of its Youth League in 1944. The National Party's exclusive white government established apartheid, an unjust system of segregation based on race that was a privilege for whites, Mandela and the ANC have pledged to end it. He was appointed as the president of the ANC's Transvaal branch. He rose to fame for his participation in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was arrested several times for seditious activity and unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. He was influenced by Marxism and secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party. While initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and launched a sabotage campaign against the state. In 1962 his arrest, he was placed in custody and sentenced to life imprisonment.