“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner,” written by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a great leader. Rolihlahla means to pull a branch of a tree’. He was born in Transkei, South Africa on 18 July 1918. His academic background started at Methodist mission school and he attends law school at University of the Witwatersrand. Mandela once said. ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. He was involved in political causes in 1942. He began attending meetings of the African National Congress (ANC), a revolutionary group whose aim to establish racial separation and oppression in South Africa. Mandela helped in founding the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1944. He organized boycotts and strikes to fight for voting rights and equality for black South Africans. In 1956, Mandela was arrested for treason.

The ANC was banned in South Africa in 1960. In 1964, Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for fighting apartheid. After spending 27 years in prison, Mandela was released in 1990. Upon his release, Mandela worked to repeal apartness and stop the growing violence in South Africa. He also helped establish multiracial elections which would occur in 1994. For his work, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. In 1994, South Africa held its first truly democratic, non-racial election and chose Nelson Mandela as its president. Mandela championed reconciliation, the peaceful resolution of grievances after decades of repressive laws against black South Africans. Without Mandela's guidance, South Africa might have lapsed into a bloody civil war. Nelson Mandela died on 5 December 2013, at the age of 95. He died because of lung infection after a long illness. He spent his entire life working for equality