Human Rights A Day

Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On October 15, 1993, two very different men shared the Nobel Peace Prize: former prisoner Nelson Mandela, and South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk was the last president to reign over the apartheid system, which denied South Africa’s black majority of basic rights. From the day he was elected, de Klerk worked to end apartheid. First, he legalized the African National Congress (ANC). Then, in 1990, he freed Mandela from 28 years in prison. (He’d been jailed for working against apartheid with the then-outlawed ANC.) Together, Mandela and de Klerk took on the challenging task of conducting negotiations to create a new country and constitution. After years of segregation, all South Africans were given the vote in April of 1994. Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first president under the new system and an ANC government. Two years later South Africans created a new and permanent constitution, based on equality for all persons.