NELSON ROLIHLAHLA MANDELA
South Africa’s first black head of state and the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election in 1994, Nelson Mandela had been committed to the overthrow of the National Party’s policy of apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, since 1948. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities before being sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962. His imprisonment lasted 27 years.
