Nelson Mandela -Symbolized the struggle of the oppressed people around the world.

NELSON MANDELA

 Nelson Mandela is a South African leader, who spent several years in prison for opposing  apartheid, i.e, the policy by which only white citizens of  South Africa were permitted to participate in government and hold the best positions in all of the country’s  institutions and the black people, who were the majority of the population, were consigned to menial  jobs and had little power even in the Bantustans created by the white government as semi-autonomous “homelands” for black south Africans. 

             Nelson Mandela was born in a small village called Transked in South Africa on July 18, 1918 and his birth name was Rolihlahla.  It was at his school that his teacher renamed him Nelson.  His father was chief of the village and a member of the Royal family of the Thember tribe.  Mandela grew up in a company of tribal elders and chief which gave him a rich sense of African self-government and heritage, despite the cruel treatment of blacks in white governed South Africa.  In 1942, he received a degree in law from University of South Africa.   In 1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC) a South African political party, since its inception, its main goal had been to work to improve conditions and rights for people of color in South Africa.  He helped to establish a youth league within the African National Congress that stepped up acts of peaceful disobedience.  He also founded a law firm that provided low-cost legal counsel to black citizens.  He became President of league In 1951.  The years between 1951 and 1960 were troubled times, both for South Africa and for the ANC.  Younger antiapartheid  activists (Protesters ), including Mandela, came  to the  view that nonviolent demonstrations against apartheid did not  work, because they  allowed  the South African government to respond with violence against Africans.  Mandela came to believe that the armed conflict would be necessary to end apartheid.  He formed a Military group that engaged in acts of sabotage and also led a national worker’s strike.  He was arrested for leading this strike and sentenced to five years in prison.  In 1963, he was again brought to trial for acts of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.  He spent 27 years in prison.  Upon his release from prison, he became the first elected President of black-majority-ruled South Africa in which apartheid was officially ended.  He won the nobel peace prize in 1993.

References: 
1) http://simple.wikipedia-org/wiki/nelsonmandela
2)//www.ask.com/government –politics/nelson-mandela-doing now-3dc 14679cb37 ie 179 qo= question page similar content
3)http://www.ask.com/history/nelson-Mandela-famous71c562dd05