Nelson Mandela: A Monumental Life Remembered
The first black president of South Africa died at the age of 95.

Celebrating a life of Nelson Mandela, and it was a remarkable life, Mandela himself once saying" Death is something evitable, when a man has done what he consideres to be his duty to his people and his country, he can rest in peace, I believe i have made that effort and that is, therefore why i will sleep for the eternity."
It has been my great privilege to serve a people whose bondage to an unhuman system evoked the solidarity of all those who love freedom and justice.
Nelson Mandela his name synonymous with the struggle and eventual triumph over South Africa's legacy of apartheid. A national treasure celebrated by the crowds of the world cup final in his home country, it was the last time many saw Mandela in public. A former boxer Mandela was an advocate of non violence, becoming a leading voice in the African national congress the ANC. but in 1960 after police shot and killed 69 protestors the ANC which had always been non violent created a military wing under Mandela's command.
And many people will feel that it is useless and feel futile for us to continue talking peace and non violence against the government whose reply is only savage attacks.
Undaunted by the brutality and inequality that was a hallmark of an apartheid rule, Mandela remained determined to end the government's forced racial segregation.
Our struggle is a truly national one, it is a struggle for the right to live.
A struggle but led to Mandela's imprisonment in 1962, and two years later a life sentence for working to overthrow the government.
I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society, it is an idea for which i hope to live and to see realized, but my lords if it needs be, it is an idea for which i am prepared to die.
4 miles off the coast of Cape Town South Africa on Rubben island, Mandela spent most of 27 years cut off from the world, but not forgotten.
Mr Nelson Mandela will be released at the v prison.
Good evening this was Nelson Mandela's first full day of freedom.
Released at the age of 72 in 1990, he remained ever vigilant that his country and its freedom rest in the hands of the people.
I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant.
And for the people of South Africa, Mandela's release after nearly 30 years of imprisonment ushered a new era of hope and the end of apartheid.
Today the majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future.
In 1993 Mandela along with South Africa's president FW won the Nobel peace prize and in 1994 Mandela's dream was realized when black South Africans cast their first ballots in a democratic election and Mandela became South Africa's first black president.
We are all South Africans, we have had a good fight, but now this is the time to heal the old wounds and to build a new South Africa.
After ruling for five years, Nelson Mandela passed the torch to the next generation and became an elder statesman to the world, a fighter, a visonary, the voice of his people, and moral compass for us all.
I am the product of Africa and her long cherished dream of a rebirth that can now be realized, so that all of her children may play in the sun.