Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid icon and politician who spent 27 years in prison. He led South Africa to democracy and served as its president from 1994 to 1999. He was the first black South African to hold the office, and the first elected in a fully representative, multiracial election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalised racism, poverty and inequality, and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he served as the President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997. Internationally, Mandela was the Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999.

Mandela retired from public life in 2004 and had largely stepped out of the spotlight, spending much of his time with family in his childhood village. His health was fragile in the later years of his life. Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013 in South Africa at the age of 95.

Mandela was nine when his father died, and he was sent from his rural village to the provincial capital to be raised by a fellow chief. The first member of his family to get a formal education, he went to boarding school and then enrolled in South Africa's elite Fort Hare University, where his activism unfurled with a student boycott.

As a young law scholar, he joined the resurgent African National Congress only a few years before the National Party came to power on a platform of apartheid, in which the government enforced racial segregation and stripped non-whites of economic and political power. As an ANC leader, Mandela advocated peaceful resistance against government discrimination and oppression – until 1961, when he launched a military wing called Spear of the Nation and a campaign of sabotage.

He was arrested the next year and soon hit with treason charges. At the opening of his trial in 1964, he said his adoption of armed struggle was a last resort born of bloody crackdowns by the government. He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Robben Island.

As the years passed, his incarceration drew ever more attention, with intensifying cries for his release as a global anti-apartheid movement gained traction. Songs were dedicated to him and 600 million people watched the Free Mandela concert at London's Wembley Stadium in 1988.

Over the next few years, Mandela proved himself a formidable negotiator as he pushed South Africa toward its first multiracial elections amid tension and violence. He and de Klerk were honored with the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.