Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black chief executive, and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. Although he had been heavily criticized for failing to do enough to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic during his presidency, he devoted much of his time to the issue following his retirement, describing it as “a war” that had killed more than “all previous wars”; affiliating himself with the Treatment Action Campaign, he urged succeeding government’s to ensure that HIV-positive South Africans had access to anti-retrovirals.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#Continued_activism_and_philanthropy:_1999.E2.80.932004