Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) was the South African anti-apartheid leader who spent twenty-seven years in prison for opposing white-minority rule, then became the country’s first Black president in 1994 — guiding the transition from apartheid to democracy without the civil war the world expected.
His choice of reconciliation over revenge — embodied in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — made him a global moral icon and earned him the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. He remains the most universally admired political figure of the late 20th century.
