Statecraft & Independence
Peerless
Nelson Mandela
1918 – 2013
Ended apartheid from a prison cell and became South Africa's first democratically elected president
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He spent twenty-seven years in prison, negotiated the end of apartheid rather than avenged it, and shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for laying the foundations of a democratic South Africa.
Born at Mvezo in July 1918, Mandela led the African National Congress's armed wing before his imprisonment, and emerged in 1990 to negotiate with the government that had jailed him.
The Nobel Committee awarded him the 1993 Peace Prize jointly with F. W. de Klerk, for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa. He was elected president the following year and served a single term.
He died in Johannesburg in December 2013.
The Nobel Committee awarded him the 1993 Peace Prize jointly with F. W. de Klerk, for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa. He was elected president the following year and served a single term.
He died in Johannesburg in December 2013.
- The Nobel Prize — Nelson Mandela, 1993
- The Nobel Prize — 1993 Peace Prize press release
- South African History Online — Nobel Prizes and South African laureates
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