What is a hero? A hero is someone who will sacrifice oneself to save another. A hero is Mandela because he suffered a lot from whites and at the end he forgave them all. Mandela was born in July 18, 1918. Born into royalty, he was highly respected. Mandela has grit and patience.

Mandela was born into a royal family and taught to be independent, to take charge, and to be a leader. One thing he learned from his tribe mates was that they had to respect white. He saw it in his dads eyes when the white men came to their tribe. He was born outside of the city, into the country side. He was the next chief in the town. At age 9, Mandela’s dad passed away. Mandela was treated as a man at the village and has respect. Later on the year that Mandela’s dad past away, Mandela’s mom sent him into the city go to school. He was separated from his mom and his named was changed from Rolihlahla to Nelson Mandela to this day.

In college, Mandela began to join strikes and saw many apartheid laws. He saw the apartheid laws between blacks and whites. The law was that blacks where living in townships, towns that were worn out and dirty. Townships is usually were blacks live. There were bearly any rights to blacks on freedom. White cops were killing and abusing blacks for reasons they thought were bad. Blacks had to carry a card with them where ever they went. If they didn’t have a card with them then there were consequences or most of the time, beatings. Mandela saw these things but decided not to do anything, yet. Around 1942 Mandela began attending and joining ANC meetings and protest and began to violate government property. Mandela motivated and made blacks believe that they have a freedom and should fight for it. Mandela went undercover from government because of the police. He was considered a terrorist in their minds. In 1962, Mandela was captured and sentenced to prison for life. Because of the blacks protesting for him, Mandela was released 27 years later and the government destroyed the apartheid laws.

Mandela was a hero. A hero of freedom. He knew what his goal was and he knew he had to sacrifice a lot for his people’s freedom. The consequences was 27 years later of his life that had paid off in prison. Mandela had strong, calm, and a helpful personality. He forgave the whites. Therefore, Mandela is a freedom fighter and hero.