Nelson Mandela

Mandela, Nelson (1918– ), South African political leader and a major figure in the black protest movement against the racial segregation policies (known as apartheid) of the white-dominated South African government. Son of a tribal chief of the Transkei territory, he became a lawyer in 1942 and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1944. He gained prominence as a leader of the black protest movement in the 1950s. In 1960 he was arrested and charged with treason but was acquitted. Arrested again in 1962, he was later convicted of sabotage and conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment. In jail he became an international symbol of black defiance of the apartheid system. In February 1990 Mandela was released from prison and assumed leadership of the ANC, pledging to work for a peaceful end to the hated apartheid regime. In early 1991, President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa called for the end of the racial segregation laws that were the underpinning of apartheid, and Mandela's goal of a race-free state seemed possible. Despite the opposition of conservative white South Africans, apartheid was abolished and the transition to a democratic government started. Notwithstanding the growing tensions between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party of Zulu chief Buthelezi, the ANC won the majority in parliament in the first democratic elections held in 1994, and Mandela became South Africa's first black president. In 1998 he married Graça Machel, widow of the former president of Mozambique.

See also: Apartheid; South Africa.