Anti-apartheid icon and first black South African President Nelson Mandela, 95, died today after battling a lung condition that began with his contraction of tuberculosis during his years in prison from 1962 to 1990.
South African President Jacob Zuma made the announcement at a news conference late Thursday, saying “we've lost our greatest son.”
Patrick Henry College history professor Robert Spinney summarized Mandela’s early politics: “As a young man … [Mandela] was a militant and violent protester against the all-white apartheid regime. He had links to leftists, socialists, and communists. The debate, however, is over whether he was truly a leftist/Marxist or just a desperate apartheid victim glad to find allies anywhere he could.”...