ALBAWABA - Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, and passed away on Dec. 5, 2013, aged 95. He lived a rich life full of political and activism shifts.
Nelson Mandela was named Rolihlahla by his father, however, his teacher at a primary school in Qunu named him Nelson in accordance with the custom of giving all schoolchildren "Christian" names.
After he continued to his Junior Certificate at Clarkebury Boarding Institute; Mandela started his studies at University College of Fort Hare for a Bachelor of Arts degree. However, he was expelled for joining a student protest at the university.
In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest Black political organization in South Africa, where he became a leader of Johannesburg’s youth wing of the ANC.
(Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP)
A couple of years later and exactly, Mandela became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid—South Africa’s institutionalized system of "white supremacy and racial segregation." However, after the massacre of peaceful Black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, he helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government.
Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years on Feb. 11, 1990. After he was jailed in 1961, for treason, and although acquitted he was arrested again in 1962 for illegally leaving the country.
After his release, Mandela and South African President F.W. de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
In 1994, the ANC won an electoral majority in the country’s first free elections, and Mandela was elected South Africa’s president.
Mandela retired from politics in 1999, but remained a global advocate for peace and social justice until his death in December 2013.
