BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 10.

Nelson Mandela is sworn in as the first black president of South Africa.

In 1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a black political organization dedicated to winning rights for the black majority in white-ruled South Africa.

In 1948, the racist National Party came to power, and apartheid–South Africa’s institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation–became official government policy.

Throughout his 27 years of incarceration, Mandela retained wide support among South Africa’s Black population, and his imprisonment became a cause célèbre among the international community that condemned apartheid.

On February 11, 1990, the South African government under President de Klerk released Mandela from prison.Shortly after his release, Mandela was chosen deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC); he became president of the party in July 1991. 

Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1993 for their efforts.

He was the first non-White head of state in South African history, as well as the first to take office following the dismantling of the apartheid system and the introduction of full, multiracial democracy. 

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