Like most people around the world, Nelson Mandela has always been a hero to me.   I started a blog on why I admire him and realized he possessed more strengths and contradictions than I could address in a blog.   I also realized that I’m unable to write about him because my skills aren’t up to it.   And what I wrote was boring.  For that reason, I started over.  Here’s my second effort.

Mr. Mandela changed his tactics over the years, from peaceful protest to more militant means until he became the man who freed and led his country.  He had friends some  in the United States still don’t like beause they don’t realize  why he had them.   He wasn’t a perfect man but he was a man of immense courage, compelled to free his people.

Instead of writing more,  I’m going to share this quote.  Mr. Mandela’s words define him far more than anything I could write.   I’d like to hear your thoughts.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquer that fear.”     Nelson Mandela