1918 — Madiba Is Born

On July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo, South Africa, a boy named Rolihlahla was born. The world would know him as Nelson Mandela. He became a lawyer, then a freedom fighter, spending twenty-seven years in prison for standing against apartheid, the system that ruled his country by race.

He walked free in February 1990, negotiated the end of white rule, and in the spring of 1994 became South Africa's first Black president. He never took revenge; he chose reconciliation. Today, July 18 is Nelson Mandela International Day: sixty-seven minutes of service, one for every year he gave to justice.