Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s Liberator as Prisoner and President, Dies at 95

[truebluefan]

Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa from white minority rule and served as his country’s first black president, becoming an international emblem of dignity and forbearance, died Thursday. He was 95.

The South African president, Jacob Zuma, announced Mr. Mandela’s death.

Mr. Mandela had long declared he wanted a quiet exit, but the time he spent in a Pretoria hospital in recent months was a clamor of quarreling family, hungry news media, spotlight-seeking politicians and a national outpouring of affection and loss. The vigil even eclipsed a visit by President Obama, who paid homage to Mr. Mandela but decided not to intrude on the privacy of a dying man he considered his hero.

Read more http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/world/africa/nelson-mandela_obit.html?_r=0