Nelson Mandela

True or False? Nelson Mandela spent almost three decades in jail before becoming president of South Africa. True! From the 1940s to the 1990s, Nelson Mandela led a movement to gain rights for black South Africans. The white South African government tried to stop him by putting him in jail. After twenty-seven years, he was freed, and black South Africans won the right to vote in their own country. They elected Mandela to be the first black president of South Africa. His parents named him Rolihlahla, but his English teacher called him Nelson when he started school. Before he went to jail, he worked as a lawyer representing black South Africans. He helped write the Freedom Charter, which became the blueprint for South Africa's fight for equality.

Judith P. Josephson is the author of several Lerner Biographies, including Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers' Rights and Allan Pinkerton: the Original Private Eye. A former elementary school teacher, she leads writing seminars and writes both fiction and nonfiction. Josephson lives near the ocean in Encinitas, California, with her husband, two daughters, and three cats.