Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

Nelson Mandela, who led South Africa's transition out of the apartheid era and became the country's first black president, died earlier today at the age of 95 in his home in Johannesburg.  Jacob Zuma, the current South African president, announced Mandela's death in a nationally televised address.  Mandela had been suffering from a lung infection, which caused him to spend three months in a Pretoria hospital.

Rolihlahla Mandela, whose first name means "pulling the branch of a tree", was born in the Transkei region of South Africa, on July 18, 1918.  A primary school teacher gave him the name Nelson.  He was also known by his clan name Madiba.  His campaigns against the white minority South African government included periods of both nonviolence and armed struggle.  In 1964, he was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government by violence.  He spent 27 years in prison, including 18 on Robben Island, a maximum security facility just off Cape Town.  After being released in 1990, he was elected president of the African National Congress, which he had first joined in 1942.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with President Frederik Willem De Klerk in 1993.  Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994, serving until his retirement in 1999.

Mandela will be given a full state funeral.  Flags in the United States will be flown at half-staff in his honor.

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