NELSON MANDELA DEAD AT 95

Nelson Mandela, the former South African
president whose stubborn defiance survived 27
years in prison and led to the dismantling of the
country’s racist and brutal apartheid system, has
died. Mandela was 95 years old.

South Africa’s president says Nelson Mandela has
died at age 95. Jacob Zuma says “We’ve lost our
greatest son,” South African President Jacob
Zuma said in announcing Mandela’s death.
Mandela had a number of issues with his health in
recent years including repeated hospitalizations
with a chronic lung infection. Mandela had been
listed in “serious but stable condition” after
entering the hospital in June before returning to
home to receive continued medical care.
In April, Mandela spent 18 days in the hospital
due to a lung infection and was treated for gall
stones in December 2012.
Mandela’s public appearances had become
increasingly rare as he dealt with his declining
health.
His last public appearance was in July of 2010,
when he attended the final match and closing
ceremonies of the soccer World Cup held in South
Africa.
Life of Nelson Mandela: See the Photos
In 2011, Mandela met privately with Michelle
Obama when the first lady and her daughters
traveled to South Africa.
Mandela and the Legacy He Leaves Behind
One of the giants of the 20th century, Mandela’s
career was marked not only by his heroic
resistance to racism, but also by his poised and
soft spoken demeanor.
After enduring nearly three decades of prison,
much of it at hard labor in a lime quarry, Mandela
emerged as a gentle leader who became South
Africa’s first black president. He was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in ending
apartheid without violence, and later became a
global statesman who inspired millions people
around the world.
Mandela was born in 1918, the son of a tribal
leader, in a remote village in South Africa.
His tribal name, Rolihlahla, meant “troublemaker,”
a moniker Mandela would more than live up to in
his lifetime.
In 1952, he emerged onto the national stage
when he helped organize the first country-wide
protests called the Defiance Campaign. That same
year he opened the country’s first black law firm.
Ruth Mopati, his secretary at the firm, wrote
about the way he was then in the book
“Mandela,” saying, “He was able to relate to
people with respect and therefore he was
respected in return.”
While Mandela’s party, the African National
Congress, had always been dedicated to non-
violence, in 1960 the ANC was banned to prevent
further protests after police shot dead 69 black
protestors in what became known as the
Sharpeville massacre.
The events radicalized the organization and led to
the creation of the ANC military wing, for which
Mandela became its first commander in 1961.
In 1962, Mandela was sent to prison on a charge
of inciting a strike.
“At 1:30 in the morning, on March 30, I was
awakened by sharp, unfriendly knocks at my
door, the unmistakable signature of the police.
‘The time has come,’ I said to myself as I opened
the door to find half a dozen armed security
policemen,” Mandela said.
Two years later, Mandela was sentenced to life in
prison for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow
the white government. Much of the next 27 years
in prison were spent in the infamous Robben
Island prison where he did hard labor in a lime
quarry.
During his nearly three decades behind bars,
Mandela would become a myth. The government
even banned any use of Mandela’s image or
words, leaving a whole generation to grow up
knowing little about the world’s most famous
political prisoner.
Nelson Mandela Teamed Up With White
Leader F.W. de Klerk
Mandela spoke about his time in his
autobiography: “A nation should not be judged by
how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest
ones — and South Africa treated its imprisoned
African citizens like animals.”
After 27 years, President F.W. de Klerk
announced in 1990, “Mr. Nelson Mandela will be
released from Victor Vestor prison…” On Feb. 11,
1990 Mandela emerged from prison into a world
he had not seen in almost three decades.
Mandela described leaving the prison and
greeting the crowds by saying, “I raised my right
fist and there was a roar. I had not been able to
do that for 27 years and it gave me a surge of
strength and joy.”
The country’s black townships erupted into
celebration for a returning hero. Mandela
announced: “Today all South Africans — black and
white — know that apartheid has no future.”
Mandela and de Klerk forged an uneasy
partnership in the coming years, despite sharing
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Peace, however, would not come quickly. More
than 4,000 people died in political violence in the
year leading up the country’s free elections in
1994.
On April 27, 1994, millions of blacks in an
extraordinary show of determination lined up for
hours to cast their first ballots. The ANC won in a
landslide and Mandela became South Africa’s first
black president.
Mandela announced: “I am the product of Africa
and her long cherished dream of a rebirth that
can now be realized so that all of her children
may play in the sun.”
He remained in office for five years. In 1999 in his
final act of leadership, he oversaw the peaceful
transfer of power to a handpicked successor.
His post-prison years were marred, however, by
the scandal that surrounded his wife Winnie
Mandela. They were married for only four months
when Mandela was sent away to prison, and she
spent the next 27 years campaigning for his
release and amassing her own power base.
By the time Mandela was freed from jail, Winnie
had become an unpopular and feared figure in
South Africa. She was eventually convicted of
kidnapping in the case of four teenage boys,
including one who died. She was sentenced to six
years in prison, but the charges were later
reduced to theft and fraud and she was forced to
pay a fine instead.
Mandela’s Late in Life Love Life
Mandela, who had stood by his wife at first,
divorced her in 1995 after revealing to a South
African court that his wife was carrying on an
adulterous affair that left him as “the loneliest
man.”
But a late-in-life romance blossomed for the
gentle statesman with Graca Machel, an
influential campaigner for children’s rights and
the widow of Mozambique’s former president
Samora Machel. The two were married in 1998 on
Mandela’s 80th birthday. She was 52.
In 2001 Mandela was diagnosed with prostate
cancer, but doctors said that wasn’t unusual for
man of Mandela’s age and treated it with
radiation therapy.
After he left office, Mandela became a global
statesman, mediating conflicts in some of the
world’s worst troubled spots.
He also devoted much of his time to his charity
for children. In an interview with PBS’ “Frontline,”
Rick Stengel who co-authored “A Long Walk to
Freedom” with Mandela, said , “One of the things
that separates Mandela from other people … is
that he’s an optimist. He’s a cockeyed optimist.”
In 2008, tens of thousands of people turned out
in London to honor him for his 90th birthday.
Nelson Mandela told them the fight against
injustice is not yet won. But after a lifetime of
working for peace, he told the crowd, “It is in
your hands now.”
The following year, actor and director Clint
Eastwood delivered his Academy award-winning
film, “Invictus,” telling the story of Mandela’s
efforts to unite the people of South Africa through
a national rugby team in 1995. The title of the
film came from a short Victorian poem by the
same name that Mandela was known for reciting.
In the end, the boy who was named
“troublemaker” became one of the greatest
peacemakers of the past century.
He will be greatly remembered as a symbol of the
fight for human rights, and as a leader who
healed a greatly divided nation in the face of
overwhelming odds.
Mandela ends his autobiography, “Conversations
With Myself,” saying, “I have walked the long road
to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made
missteps along the way. But I have discovered
the secret — that after climbing a great hill, one
only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a
view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to
look back on the distance that I have come. But I
can rest for a moment, for with freedom comes
responsibilities and I dare not linger, for my long
walk is not yet ended.”