Rest in peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_in_South_Africa
Mandela fought this system along with many others through the ANC, the African National Congress. Some of its actions were violent, and the organization and its members were labeled as terrorists, though Mandela later disavowed violence.
He was freed in 1990, elected president of South Africa in 1994, and served until 1999. A man who went from spending 28 years in jail to leading the peaceful transition of his nation. His is one of the greatest stories of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Listening to Obama speakin right now. "I'm not a saint, unless you consider a saint to be a sinner who keeps on trying."
NB: Obama himself was hugely guided and influenced by Nelson Mandela.
It would be like comparing, say, Bush Sr with Winston Churchill.
Not in terms of worthiness. If Obama was exactly the same in every way but was 100% white, he never would have even made congressman let alone either term of presidency. He was pushed through on racism (non-white people voting blindly for him because the other guy was white), political correctness, the power of persuasive marketing (of lies) and the attitude of affirmative action.
Obama is no leader or unifier. Every other word out of his mouth is a lie. Mandela is worthy of credit for the skills he possessed. Obama is a giant social and traditional media, speech writers and teleprompters induced fraud.
Subjective opinion is subjective, bordering on offensive.
This point deserves more expounding, which I'm not qualified to write. Apartheid was brutal, and the victims suddenly became the majority in a democracy. It's the sort of situation where you'd expect an eternal cycle of vengeance. But there wasn't one. There was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and probably other things, and then there was peace. There are few achievements in history to which this can be compared.
I don't think apartheid ever pretended to be equal; that was the conceit of the US's similar but less extreme "Separate but Equal" policies.
I don't think it was even nominally equal until very late in the apartheid period (and that as an effort to mollify external criticism and reduce internal tension while maintaining effective white domination) when the Constitution of 1983 adopted the Tricameral Parliament which provided for representation (via separate legislative bodies that were responsible for each groups own affairs, and had to concur on common affairs -- with a council representing all three groups but with an overwhelming White majority empowered to resolve disagreements between the three chambers) for Coloureds and Indians, with both of those groups also having representation -- Blacks, of course, still didn't get anything in the South African government, because they were nominally citizens of the bantustans and not South Africa proper.
Nelson Mandela's Life Story - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQBoXsxr8w
Mandela release from prison speech - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpw8AU3wMsM
1918 Born in the Eastern Cape
1943 Joined African National Congress
1956 Charged with high treason, but charges dropped after a four-year trial
1962 Arrested, convicted of incitement and leaving country without a passport, sentenced to five years in prison
1964 Charged with sabotage, sentenced to life
1990 Freed from prison
1993 Wins Nobel Peace Prize
1994 Elected first black president
1999 Steps down as leader
2001 Diagnosed with prostate cancer
2004 Retires from public life
2005 Announces his son has died of an HIV/Aids-related illness