Nelson Rolinlahla Mandela (also known as Madeba), a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and politician who served as President of South African from 1994 to 1999, was the first black South African to hold the office, and the first elected in a fully representative, multiracial election. Mandela was born to the Thembu royal family. He attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand where he studied law. After the Afrikaner nationalists of the National Party came to power in 1948 and began implementing the policy of apartheid, a system of racial segregation, he rose to prominence in the African National Congress’s 1952 Defiance Campaign. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and, with the ANC leadership, was prosecuted in the Treason Trial from 1956 to 1961 but was found not guilty. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he was arrested in 1962, convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.