नेल्सन मंडेला

They offered him his freedom. He said no.

Nelson Mandela had led a secret armed group, and spent 27 years in prison.

Then the country that jailed him made him its president.

Why did he say no?

Raised to advise a king, he ran away at 22 from an arranged marriage.

As a lawyer in Johannesburg, he fought apartheid: race laws that kept nearly all Black people from voting.

He led peaceful protests, until police killed 69 people at Sharpeville, and his movement was banned.

So he led its new armed group. Its bombs, he said, were meant for property, not people.

Caught in disguise, he was jailed. At his next trial, he faced the death penalty, and got life.

On Robben Island, his cell was 3 paces long. For 13 years, he broke rock in a limestone quarry.

The limestone, his surgeon said, burned out his tear glands.

He learned Afrikaans, his jailers' language, to understand his enemy.

Outside, the armed group fought on. Some of its bombs killed civilians.

The government offered him freedom, if he would reject violence.

His answer: "Only free men can negotiate. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. I will return."

Then, without telling his own side, he opened secret talks to end apartheid.

A new president set him free. At 71, he walked out with his fist raised.

At 75, in the first election open to all races, he voted for the first time in his life. The ballot carried his own face.

Elected president, he invited the prosecutor from his trial to lunch. The man came away calling him saintly.

He could have stayed on. After one term, he stepped down.

He died at home, at 95. Yet so many remember him dying in prison that the false memory bears his name: the Mandela effect.