Nelson Mandela by: Kylie E., Neal R.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1928. Mandela was educated at a University College and was qualified for law in 1948. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948.
Nelson Mandela was a firm believer in equality. Since childhood he had grown up watching his people being suppressed, banned, imprisoned , and arrested. As a young adult he knew it was up to him to make a difference, but he also knew the consequences that come along with making a stand for whats right. Just as Moses, Mandela was nervous and a little fearful of what may occur but knew without a doubt that he was meant to do it.
Throughout the whole of the fifties Mandela was the victim of much racism. He spent the later half of the decade, he was one of many accused in the mammoth Treason Trial. This affected his law practice and political career in a very negative way. After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mandela, still on trial, was detained.
For Mandela's part in the Defiance Campaign, he was accused of interfering with the Suppression of Communism Act and was slapped with a suspended prison sentence. Closely after the campaign ended, Mandela was prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to a life of imprisonment.
Released on February 11, 1991, after almost twenty years of imprisonment, Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organization's National Chairperson. Mandela then went on to win the first ever democratic election of South Africa, which ended the racist apartheid regime that had reigned over South Africa for 46 years.
Nelson Mandela has never wavered in his devotion to democracy, education, and equality. In spite of obvious provoking and many opportunities, he has never answered racism with racism. Through a life that symbolizes the triumph of the human spirit over man's inhumanity to man, Mandela has brought hope to the oppressed, the weak, and the helpless. Nelson Mandela accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.