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Leaders including President Barack Obama of the United States of America, United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron and President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday condoled with South Africans over the death of the first black president of South Africa, Dr. Nelson Mandela. Reacting to Mandela’s demise, Obama described the South African leader as “a man who took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.” Obama, who spoke some minutes after Mandela’s death was announced, said Mandela’s life had inspired his own historic path to the White House. “And like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set. And so long as I live, I will do what I can to learn from him. “Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa and moved all of us. “H...

Born in 1918, Nelson Mandela joined the African National Congress in 1943, as a law student. He and other ANC leaders campaigned against apartheid (white-only rule). He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964, but was released in 1990 after 27 years in jail on Robin Island as South Africa began to move away from strict racial segregation. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994. He stepped down after five years in office in 1999. After leaving office, he became South Africa’s highest-profile ambassador, campaigning against HIV/Aids and helping to secure his country’s right to host the 2010 football World Cup. He was also involved in peace negotiations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and other countries in Africa and elsewhere.

Freedom fighter, statesman, moral compass and South Africa’s symbol of the struggle against racial oppression. That was Nelson Mandela, who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead his country out of decades of apartheid. Here are some of his inspiring quotes: “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. “Our struggle for freedom and justice was a collective effort…it is in your hands to create a better world for all who live in it. “Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a ...