BY MICHAEL K. LAVERS
Washington Blade
Former South African President Nelson Mandela on Thursday passed away at the age of 95.
“Our nation has lost its greatest son,” said South African President Jacob Zuma as he announced on South African television that Mandela had passed away at his Johannesburg home. “Nelson Mandela brought us together. And it is together that we will bid him farewell.”
Born in Cape Province on July 18, 1918, Mandela spent 27 years in jail for opposing South Africa’s apartheid-era government until his release in 1990. Mandela was the country’s president from 1994-1999. South Africa in 1994 became the first country in the world to add a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation into its constitution.
Read more at Washington Blade
Washington Blade is America’s leading gay news source.
