Nelson Mandela had a traditional childhood as a member of the Tembu ruling family in the Transkei where he herded sheep and learnt to plough. From his Methodist school he went on to study at Fort Hare college, but was suspended for organising the students.
To complete his studies and to avoid a threatened arranged marriage he went to Johannesburg where he met Walter Sisulu - a self-educated fighter against apartheid in South Africa. Sisulu arranged for Mandela to study law.
In 1944, when he was 26, Mandela joined the African National Congress (ANC) and with Sisulu and Oliver Tambo helped to form its Youth League. Mandela, with his determination to rid the people of a sense of inferiority after years of oppression, was elected its General Secretary. By 1949 the League had persuaded the ANC to adopt a more militant programme of strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience.
From then on the government played cat-and-mouse with Mandela - imprisoning him for his politics, outlawing him, forcing him to go underground and into exile. "I found myself restricted and isolated from my fellow men, tailed by officers of the Special Branch wherever I went... I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for."
On 26 June 1955 at Kliptown 3,000 people adopted the Freedom Charter of the ANC. There, Mandela and other members went out of their way to include everyone in their vision: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white". But the government did not like the growing support of the ANC and its ability to attract a mass membership. In 1956 Mandela and 155 others were arrested and charged with treason - an alleged Communist-inspired coup. After an investigation taking four and a half years, the Treason Trial failed; nothing was proven. It was during this time that Mandela met and married Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela, a social worker. Despite the fact that for most of their married life, Mandela was either forced into hiding or in jail, she herself was subject to frequent restrictions and house arrests by the government.
The Sharpeville massacre in 1960 was a watershed in south African politics. Groups like the ANC realised that peaceful protests were not enough. In 1961 Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the armed wing of the ANC, was created. And Mandela had, once again, to go into exile. He returned to South Africa and, in 1962, was captured and charged with inciting Africans to go on strike. He used his time in court to make political speeches which he knew would be conveyed not merely to his own people, but across the world. And at the famous Rivonia Trial in 1963 he spoke for four hours in his own defence. "The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy...It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live..." Mandela and seven other activists were sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 27 years, most of them on Robben island, off Cape Town.
But Mandela's influence continued to grow. His vision for a just and democratic South Africa - as expressed in his speeches and writings - became widely circulated around the world. And his release became the focus for the international anti-apartheid movement. In 1990, at the age of 71, he was released from prison and made a dignified return to the political arena. In 1994 his life-long ambition was achieved when South Africa became a country in which blacks and whites had equal political freedom. At his inauguration as President of the new regime in 1994 he said: "Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread and salt for all. The time for the healing of the wounds has come." Through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he has tried to get those responsible for apartheid's atrocities to admit to their past mistakes.
His speeches and writings have been published in a book called The Struggle is My Life and his autobiography called Long Walk to Freedom is also available.
Find out more about the people who made a difference on the HomeBeats: Struggles for Racial Justice CDROM.