Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in South Africa and orphaned at age 9. He became involved in political activism through the African National Congress in 1943. Mandela went underground in 1961 to lead the ANC's armed wing against apartheid and was arrested in 1962. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and incarcerated for 27 years, during which he earned a law degree. Mandela was released in 1990 and elected president of South Africa in 1994, becoming the country's first black head of state in a fully democratic election. He died in 2013 at age 95 after helping transform South Africa into a multi-racial democracy.

1. NELSON MANDELA
1918—2013

2. He belonged to the Madiba clan of the Xhosa ethnic group and was born in 1918 in Mvezo.
His father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, died in 1928 at the age of 48.
The mother, Nongaphi Nosekeni Fanny, was a victim of tuberculosis
• Orphaned at age nine, Rolihlahla Dalibhunga Mandela received her primary education at
Engcobo's Clarkebury Boarding School and secondary school at Fort Beaufort, the
Healdtown Methodist Boarding School. • His main teacher, a British missionary, gave him
the Anglophone name of Nelson, which became valid for legal purposes.

3. • In 1939, after finishing school. Mandela went
to the city of Alice to graduate with a law
degree from Fort Hare University College, an
academic institution reserved for non-white
students.
Mandela made a living in Johannesburg as a gold mine
watchman and later as a clerk at a white-run law firm. It was
in the big city of the then Transvaal province that Mandela
came into contact with purely political activism.
• In 1943, in the midst of World War II, Mandela joined the
African National Congress (ANC), an organization that
championed black nationalism founded in 1912 and whose
leadership at that time was held by Alfred Bitini Xuma and
James Calata. In the ANC, Mandela developed a close
relationship with Walter Sisulu, a Transkeian peasant who
made a living as a real estate agent.

4. It was Sisulu, six years his senior, who introduced him to the
white-owned law firm in Johannesburg, opening the doors to
a liberal profession that few blacks had access to. After
meeting Sisulu's cousin Evelyn Evelyn Mase, a 22-year-old
nurse, she became Mandela's first wife, 1944; with her he
has four children,
• In 1955 he separated from Evelyn, whose
affiliation with the Jehovah's Witnesses
prevented him from getting involved in
politics, and two years later the marriage
ended in divorce.

5. .. . In June 1958 Mandela married social worker Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela, a Xhosa
18 years his junior who, unlike his first wife, was willing to commit to financing the movement for
the liberation of her people and supporting the struggle for her husband, with all that. implied.
Then the famous and controversial Winnie Mandela, as she became known, gave the black leader
two more daughters, Zenani in 1959 and Zindziswa in 1960.
• Arrested , imprisoned and prosecuted several times , Mandela suffered his umpteenth and last
arrest in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre , Transvaal , on March 21 , 1960 .

6. The truth was that in December 1961, Mandela, convinced of the futility of the peaceful struggle against
apartheid, went underground and assumed the leadership of the armed wing of the ANC, (Lance of the Nation,
also known by its acronym, MK).
• This dangerous turn, which was the result of a long process of political reflection, matured after the
Sharpeville massacre, and not a hasty decision, began to attack government facilities and police targets with
guerrilla pretensions.

7. . On June 12, 1964 (except Bernstein, who was acquitted) the defendants were sentenced to prison, a
draconian sentence that the prosecution initially requested the death penalty. Mandela and his
companions were interned in an isolation unit for political prisoners on Robben Island.
:To preserve his emotional state and intellectual faculties in the harsh conditions of Prison Island, the
inmate enrolled in a distance learning program at the University of London and obtained a Bachelor of
Laws degree.

8. On February 11, 1990, many saw the face of Nelson Mandela for the first time. At the age of 72, Mandela left the
Victor Verster prison in South Africa, dressed in a suit
and next to Winnie Mandela, his partner. Both with their fists raised. The activist had been behind bars for 27 years
and, despite the fact that he had become one of the most famous political prisoners in the world, never before
had his face been televised live around the world as on this occasion.
and the then president, Frederik Willem De Klerk, had decided to amnesty him to get one step closer to the end of
apartheid, the system of racial segregation that historically kept a white minority in power in South Africa, while
stripping rights from the black majority.
That day, Mandela went to Cape Town, from where he gave a famous speech: "I have cherished the ideal of a free
and democratic society, where all people live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for
which I hope live and that I want to achieve, but if necessary, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die".

9. Former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, who was admitted to a hospital on June 8 due to a
relapse due to his lung infection and was declared in critical condition on June 23, after a long agony as a result of a lung infection,
died at the age of 95 at his home in Johannesburg. The former president died around 8:50 p.m. on Thursday, December 5, in peace
and assisted by his relatives, in particular his eldest daughter Makaziwe Mandela
Shortly before his death, Nelson himself declared: Death is inevitable. When a man has done what he regards as his duty to his people
and his country, he can rest in peace. I believe that I have made that effort and therefore I will sleep for all eternity.
A few days later, the tragic news of Mandela's death was released.
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