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Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918 into the Mandiba clan in Mvezo, South Africa. His father, Nkosi, died when he was twelve years old.  He received his name Nelson from his school in Qunu. Nelson's goal was to make a contribution to a freedom  struggle for his people in the village. Mandela went to several schools before graduating. He then attended the University College of Fort Hare for a Bachelors and Arts Degree. Although, he did not finish and got expelled for joining a student protest. After furious talks and new jobs at a mine security officer, he graduated from the University of South Africa with a Bachelors degree.  Afterwards, Mandella started studying for a different degree, although he did not finish it at any of the several colleges he attended.

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Born on the 18th of July, 1918, Mandela entered the world at a time when millions were leaving it. As the Spanish-Flu pandemic ravaged country after country, he was born in Mvezo - a small village located near the Mbashe River in a part of South Africa known then as the Transkei.

His parents (Gadla "Henry" Mphakanyiswa and Nosekeni "Fanny") spoke Xhosa and called their baby boy "Rolihlahla." That name has two meanings. Literally translated, it is "pulling the branch of a tree," but colloquially it means "troublemaker." No one called him Nelson until a teacher - Miss Mdingane - gave him that name on his first day of school.

Growing up in a hut in the village of Qunu (where Mandela has a retirement home), the young boy viewed nature as his playground. The land itself provided what he needed for toys. Rolihlahla and his friends turned large, smooth rocks - found in the hills above his village - into roller coasters and transformed tree branches into oxen-drawn sleighs.

No one in Mandela's family had ever attended school, but one day two of Fanny's friends suggested that her son - a clever child - should be the first. When his father agreed, seven-year-old Rolihlahla had to exchange his normal clothes (a blanket wrapped around one shoulder with a pin at the waist) for school clothes (a cut-off pair of his father's trousers with a cinching string at the waist).

In school, young Nelson received a British education. At the time, African subjects - and culture - were not part of the school curriculum.

Two years later, Nelson went through a life-changing experience when his father died. Beyond the pain of that loss, there was more. Fanny decided her son would leave Qunu, so all he had previously known in his life would be left behind.

What Nelson did not know then, was that Jongintaba - a highly respected man who served as regent - had offered to become the child's guardian. For the next years of his life, Nelson would live in Mqhekezweni.

In his new school, Mandela studied history, geography, English and Xhosa. From his adopted father, he learned about democracy-in-action. He closely listened to chiefs as they told stories about African patriots fighting against Western domination. Paying attention to Chief Joyi, the growing boy learned that tribal fellowship had been shattered when foreign white people arrived.

At sixteen, Mandela learned another life lesson. In the Xhosa tradition, a boy becomes a man when he is circumcised. When it happened to him, Nelson learned that boys may cry but "a man conceals his pain." (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, page 28.)

After his circumcision, Mandela was sent to Clarkebury Boarding Institute in the Engcobo district. It was not for him, noted the regent, "to spend your life mining the white man's gold, never knowing how to write your name." At Clarkebury - a Thembu college - Nelson learned another significant lesson. Although he was descended from a royal line, so were other people:

I quickly realized that I had to make my way on the basis of my ability, not my heritage. Most of my classmates could outrun me on the playing field and outthink me in the classroom, and I had a good deal of catching up to do.

Catching up - like many other things in his life - was something Nelson Mandela embraced. Continuing to do well with his studies, he became a student at the University College of Fort Hare.

At this prestigious institution, he met Oliver Tambo (his future law partner). And ... at Fort Hare ... he begin to personally experience the profound injustice which follows when one person has too much authority over another.

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Born on the 18th of July, 1918, Mandela entered the world at a time when millions were leaving it. As the Spanish-Flu pandemic ravaged country after country, he was born in Mvezo - a small village located near the Mbashe River in a part of South Africa known then as the Transkei.

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Before Mandela's imprisonment, he was involved with politics in the 1940s. He was a part of the African National Congress in 1944. That same year, he married a woman named Evelyn Mase and had four children. They divorced several years after. After battles about apartheid and racism, he was arrested in 1955. Years after during the trial, he remarried and had two daughters. During the trial he travelled to different countries for conferences. He was then asked to lead a strike against his beliefs on non-racism. In 1962, he took a fake name and left South Africa. After traveling to different countries and got military training, he was arrested for leaving the country without a permit. He was involved in sabotaging the trial with several other men. He was prosecuted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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View photos of Nelson Mandela's prison years and release.

Former South African president and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela turns 95 on Thursday. He spent many of his years in jail while still fighting for a democratic and free society.

In all, Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, 18 of those on Robben Island, a rock quarry off the coast of Cape Town. He and eight other African National Congress leaders were convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, and were sentenced to life in jail in 1964.

Mandela and the other prisoners were completely isolated, got little to eat and had to undertake the grueling work of pounding rocks into gravel.

What kept him and the others sane was the community they formed for themselves, according to Gay McDougall. During apartheid, McDougall was director of the Southern African Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, assisting in the defense of thousands of political prisoners in South Africa.

"One of the things that was extraordinary about [Mandela] is his sense that being in a group - a collective - of people committed to the same principles, along with making collective decisions about the way forward, is an essential element in movement-building and survival in circumstances that are harsh and oppressive," she said.
Mandela's cell on Robben Island. Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images.
"People refer to 'Robben Island University' because they began to study" everything from politics to their individual areas of expertise, said McDougall.

Mandela also knew he was serving a larger purpose in jail and didn't hold it against the guards, she said. "That lack of personal animosity toward those in charge of his confinement was important to his survival."

Times were tough, though. It was in prison that he learned about the death of one of his children from his first wife Evelyn Mase.

His health also took a toll. In 1982, he was moved to the maximum security Pollsmoor Prison on the main land, where he was believed to have contracted tuberculosis. He has fought respiratory ailments ever since.

An international movement helped secure Mandela's release in 1990 at age 71. When he emerged from jail, no one knew what he would look like - that's how closely the apartheid government had shielded him from the world, said McDougall.

"I thought he looked remarkably fit and handsome, upright and dignified," she said. And the speech he gave in Cape Town upon his release was remarkable in that he "didn't give an inch" from his original demands going into jail, she added.

"The need to unite the people of our country is as important a task now as it always has been. No individual leader is able to take on this enormous task on his own. It is our task as leaders to place our views before our organization and to allow the democratic structures to decide," Mandela said on Feb. 11, 1990.

(Read his full speech on the ANC website.)
On the June 28 PBS NewsHour, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, special correspondent for NBC News, discussed Mandela's legacy and how democracy helped shape South Africa: View more of our World coverage. Follow @NewsHourWorld
Mandela helped negotiate the end of apartheid under then-President F.W. de Klerk. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and his ANC party won multi-racial democratic elections a year later. Mandela became president of South Africa, serving one term.

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How Nelson Mandela Survived His Years in Isolated South African Jail

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View photos of Nelson Mandela's prison years and release. Former South African president and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela turns 95 on Thursday. He spent many of his years in jail while still fighting for a democratic and free society.

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Although Mandela was sentenced to life in confinement, he still managed to earn a bachelor of law degree from the University of London. He became a mentor to his fellow prisoners and taught them to rebel through non violent resistance. It was here where Mandela even wrote the rough draft for his autobiography that would later be released after five years. Later on in 1980, a man named Oliver Tambo created the "Free Nelson Mandela" campaign. After much pressure, the government agreed to a compromise to set Nelson Mandela free. However, it was not until 1990 that Mandela was officially freed under the new presidency of F.W. de Klerk. With his new freedom, Mandela became the president of the ANC. He brought peace and helped with race relationships. After his leaving office, Mandla became a vocal advocate of AIDS awareness in 2002 in which the disease later claimed his son, Makgatho, taking his life. As the years went on, Mandela himself faced health issues become more and more frail. It was on December 5th, 2013 that Nelson Mandela died of a lung infection. While his life was a struggle, Mandela will always be remembered for his service and willingness for peace.

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Throughout his journey, Mandela has been thought of as one of the most influential leaders to this day. He was never a perfect man but he  knew how to present himself. It was not Mandela's speaking that made him stand out but his attention to symbolism. When you are told to think of a leader, usually one's thought would direct them to someone who would never quit. Nelson, however, felt otherwise . Sometimes to succeed you have to quit, but quitting doesn't automatically mean failure. Mandela understood the fact that with leadership sometimes you have to abandon an idea to keep pushing forward. Never look back to the past , look to the future. With leadership, Mandela felt that he did not necessarily need to be the head of the pact. He believed that you should let others be in the lead to feel a sense of hope but was always there lingering in the background. Mandela continued to  lead even when the world was black and white.

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Mandela looked ahead and could see that South Africa’s system of apartheid would not survive into the future. From his prison cell, he strategically assessed his moves and anticipated reactions. Mandela stood out among prisoners and guards as a man of principle and dignity, willing to sacrifice his life for his beliefs. Despite harsh prison life, Mandela mustered energy to challenge his keepers. Mandela studied the errors of Robert Mugabe in bordering Zimbabwe whose brutal dictatorship resulted in the country’s demise. He recognized that South Africa could follow in Zimbabwe’s footsteps, unless he practiced racial harmony. After being elected South Africa’s first black president, Mandela announced he would serve only one term, though two were permissible. He understood rallying the country and bridging diverse interests meant making room for others.  For most of his life, Mandela was a socialist and even a Marxist. He was suspicious of free markets and private ownership, given the abuses he witnessed.

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Mandela lived for 27 years in prison, mostly on Robben Island, where every day with a small hammer he broke rocks apart in the blazing sun only to retreat into his only home, an 8x8 cell. Mandela helped to unite South Africa as it dismantled apartheid, the cruel system of white minority rule. He symbolized for all of Africa a commitment to democracy and freedom. One of the clear things that propelled Mandela to greatness amidst his suffering and depersonalization in prison, was forgiving his jailors, feeling compassion for those who had caused him pain and his desire for reconciliation. Mandela had the capacity to transcend himself for the sake of those around him and higher causes. His personal pain at causing his family to suffer, seeing the nation he led sink into corruption, and admitting his own mistakes, after all he fought for after his release from prison, never overwhelmed him nor stopped his resolve to make things better. Mandela once said, “one of the most difficult things is not to change society—but to change yourself.”

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After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation that it called apartheid. Under apartheid, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) would be forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups would be limited. By 1950, the government had banned marriages between whites and people of other races, and prohibited sexual relations between black and white South Africans. Resistance to apartheid within South Africa took many forms over the years, from non-violent demonstrations, protests and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance.

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http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1821659-2,00.html

http://www.morningsidecenter.org/teachable-moment/lessons/nelson-mandela-fight-against-apartheid

http://fortune.com/2014/12/05/6-principles-that-made-nelson-mandela-a-renowned-leader/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201312/why-nelson-mandela-was-great-leader

http://www.history.com/topics/nelson-mandela

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In 1976, when thousands of black children in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for black African students, the police opened fire with tear gas and bullets. Under pressure from the international community, the National Party government of Pieter Botha sought to institute some reforms, including abolition of the pass laws and the ban on interracial sex and marriage. A new constitution, which enfranchised blacks and other racial groups, took effect in 1994, and elections that year led to a coalition government with a nonwhite majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system.

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Nelson Mandela spent more than 40 years, 27 of them in prison, as a central figure in the struggle against South Africa’s brutal and restrictive racial regime. He was South Africa's 1st ever black president. Under the apartheid, the South African population was divided into four distinct racial groups: white, black, colored, and Indian. Strict residential, economic, and social segregation was enforced on the basis of these racial categories. Non-whites were not allowed to vote in national election. Moreover, apartheid saw the institution of the “homeland system,” in which the government sought to establish separate states for members of each of the country’s many black ethnic groups. While non-whites were confined to squalid ghettos with few decent educational and employment opportunities, whites were afforded the basic privileges of life in a democracy.