Nelsen Mandela

Posted October 4, 2007, 11:11 pm
Credit Growing Bolder

Nelson Mandela
Born: July 18, 1918

Nelson Mandela has spent much of his life fighting apartheid, the racist system used by the former white government of South Africa to suppress the majority black population. In 1964 Mandela was tried for plotting to overthrow the government by violence and sentenced to life in prison. During his years in prison, he became a potent symbol of resistance. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.  Despite terrible provocation, he has never answered racism with racism. His life has been an inspiration, in South Africa and throughout the world.

After the Age of 70

• At age 72 (Feb. 11, 1990 , Mandela was released from prison.  He plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier.
• At age of 73 (1991), he was elected President of the African National Congress.
• At age 75 (1993), he received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of South Africans who suffered and sacrificed to bring peace to their land.
• 

  Nelson Mandela
• At age 76 (May 10, 1994), he became the first black President of South Africa.
• He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001, and four years later, the 85-year-old former president announced his retirement from public life but he continues to speak about his passions, including eradicating HIV and AIDS.

Quotes:

• "There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. "
• "And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
• "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
• "When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat."
• "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. "
• "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

© 2006-2012. Growing Bolder Media Group. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.