Nelson Mandela, who rose from militant antiapartheid activist to become the unifying president of a democratic South Africa and a global symbol of racial reconciliation, died at his Johannesburg home following a lengthy stay at a Pretoria hospital, the government said Thursday. He was 95.

militant：好斗的，积极分子，武装分子           antiapartheid：反种族隔离的            reconciliation：和解，调和

In a state television address, President Jacob Zuma said Mr. Mandela had died that evening after a long illness. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father," said Mr. Zuma, dressed in a dark jacket and reading his statement in deep somber tones. "Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss."

somber：忧郁的，低沉的          diminish：减小，变小            profound：深厚的，意义深远的，渊博的

In a somber statement from the White House, President Barack Obama said Mr. Mandela "achieved more than could be expected of any man. Today he's gone home and we've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth."

courageous：勇敢的                     condolence：哀悼，慰问

Mr. Obama also expressed his condolences in a phone conversation with Mr. Zuma.

As Mr. Zuma addressed the nation, passersby stopped outside Mr. Mandela's home in Johannesburg, crying and carrying flowers and lighting candles. South Africa's state television broadcaster played "Amazing Grace," as it scrolled through pictures of Mr. Mandela's life and his struggle against apartheid.

"Tata Madiba was our hero, our leader and our mentor," said 39-year-old Michelle Colet, using affectionate terms for Mr. Mandela. "The country is going to be at a standstill."

mentor：良师益友            affectionate：深情的          at a standstill：停止，静止

"He brought white and black people together without fighting," said her son, 10-year-old Teagan Colet.

Mr. Mandela spent nearly three months in the hospital through September, initially to treat a lung infection. It was the latest in a series of increasingly severe ailments South Africa's first black president had battled since contracting tuberculosis during his nearly three decades in * for opposing the former white-minority regime.

ailment：疾病，小病          tuberculosis：肺结核

Though Mr. Mandela had stepped down from the presidency in 1999, he remained a father figure for a country going through wrenching economic and political change. South Africa's economy has struggled to grow about 2% this year, well below government targets of 7%, and unemployment among young people is close to 80%. In recent years, protests in predominantly black townships have erupted over poor public services and a dearth of job opportunities. Many young black South Africans, born after the dawn of democracy in 1994, are channeling their frustration toward the current government, led by Mr. Mandela's African National Congress.

wrench：扭伤，曲解            predominantly：主要地，显著地          erupt：爆发，喷出           dearth：缺乏，不足

It was as a *er that Mr. Mandela first became a rallying point for opponents of apartheid. After he was sentenced to life in * in 1964, he spent more than 25 years behind bars, much of it in a maximum-security * on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town.

rallying point：号召力，聚集点          behind bars：在*服刑，坐牢

By the time he was released from a different * in 1990, the tables had been turned. South Africa had become a pariah nation, and Mr. Mandela would lead his country's re-embrace of a world that had spurned its racist government.

pariah：贱民              spurn：藐视，践踏，冷落

With South African President F.W. de Klerk, with whom he had met secretly with other apartheid officials in *, Mr. Mandela would pick apart the machinery of white political domination through painstaking negotiations. Those negotiations laid the groundwork for the election in 1994 of the country's first black president—Mr. Mandela himself.

painstaking：辛勤的，艰苦的             lay the groundwork：奠定基础

Mr. Mandela inherited a fractured nation. He led it back from the brink of civil war, forming a government of national unity that demolished apartheid and established a constitution that is one of the most liberal in the world in terms of human rights—outlawing, for example, discrimination based on sexual orientation.South Africa later became the first country on the continent to legalize gay marriage.

fractured：断裂的，挫伤的，破碎的           brink：边缘          demolish：拆毁，破坏，推翻         outlaw：歹徒，罪犯，亡命之徒

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission he championed hastened the end of racial conflict by granting amnesty in return for testimony, and became a model for ending seemingly intractable conflicts elsewhere. East Timor, Liberia and Peru were among the countries that would follow South Africa's example.

hasten：加速，催促       amnesty：大赦特赦             testimony：证言，证词，证据         intractable：棘手的，倔强的

At the time, Mr. Mandela's tall task was, as he put it, to find the "middle ground between white fears and black hopes." But he also needed to reconcile disparate factions within his party, the African National Congress. Some influential ANC leaders wanted to take a tougher line against whites after triumphing at the ballot box, and some argued for a wealth tax to speed the redistribution of the country's resources, said Verne Harris, a historian at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory, which houses the archives of the former president.

middle ground：妥协，中间立场            reconcile：使一致，调解              disparate：不同的        faction：派系

triumph：胜利，凯旋        ballot box：投票箱，*选举           wealth tax：财产税         archive：档案，存档

"There were many who argued the case for tough love—don't make it easy for them," said Mr. Harris. "Reconciliation was a beautiful fit for South Africa, but we forget that it wasn't the only approach being discussed at the time."

During his six decades in the public arena, Mr. Mandela wasn't above precipitous shifts in position. He initially put his faith in Gandhian nonviolence, but when strikes and protests began to seem futile, he founded a band of saboteurs. He believed in obedience to the party but acted unilaterally at turning points in the struggle. He advocated nationalizing South Africa's mines but changed his mind when the stance threatened to deprive a struggling economy of much-needed capital.

arena：舞台，竞技场         precipitous：险峻的，急躁的，陡峭的         futile：无用的，无效的           saboteur：破坏者，怠工者

inobedience to：服从，遵照          unilaterally：单方面地          stance：立场，姿态           deprive：使丧失，剥夺

Even occasional critics would come to see Mr. Mandela as the political glue that held his party, and later the country, together.

Mr. de Klerk, who would serve as Mr. Mandela's deputy after the country's first democratic vote, said his former adversary "could be brutal" in negotiations. But the pair, who shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for the country's democratic transition, was able to sell compromises to supporters who differed radically in outlook. Mr. de Klerk said in a 2012 speech that the 6'4" former boxer "had the stature and the strength to hold his fractious alliance together—even at the most difficult junctures."

adversary：对手，敌手      brutal：残忍的，野蛮的    radically：根本上，彻底地           fractious：易怒的，倔强的

stature：身高，身材，（精神）高度           juncture：接缝，连接

Rolihlahla Mandela—"Nelson" was added when he started school—was born July 18, 1918, to a chief of the Thembu tribe of the Xhosa people in South Africa. He grew up in a village of mud huts and grass rooftops, the floors made of earth smeared with cow dung, in the land known as the Transkei. Women farmed corn, or mealies, pumpkins and beans; men left their families to work on white-owned farms or mines. Blacks at the time had few rights in the new country, founded by white European immigrants known as Afrikaners.

tribe：部落，宗族      smear：涂抹，弄脏，诽谤           cow dung：牛粪          mealy：粉状的           pumpkin：南瓜

Mr. Mandela was the first in his family to attend school and eventually began working toward a law degree in Johannesburg, a bustling commercial hub. He hoped for a civil-service job in the Native Affairs Department in the government, about as high as a black man could aspire at the time.

bustling：熙熙攘攘的，忙乱的         aspire：渴望，立志，追求

His struggle for civil rights involved "a steady accumulation of one thousand slights, one thousand indignities, one thousand unremembered moments, [that] produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that impoverished my people," he wrote in his autobiography.

accumulation：积累         slight：轻视，轻蔑，怠慢            indignity：侮辱          rebelliousness：叛逆性，*

autobiography：自传         impoverish：贫困

He joined the African National Congress and helped found its Youth League. In his early years as an activist, Mr. Mandela viewed with deep suspicion the white *s who he feared would take over the black liberation movement. In one defeated motion, he sought to expel * members from the ANC. Another time, Mr. Mandela recounted in his autobiography, he stormed the stage of a * Party meeting, tearing up signs and grabbing the microphone. He would mellow in his later years, and would even come to view South Africa's *s as critical allies and laud a socialist path for development. But unlike many of his fellow ANC leaders, Mr. Mandela distanced himself ideologically from the country's Marxists.

expel：驱逐，开除         recount：叙述，重算        tear up：撕碎，扯掉           mellow：  成熟，柔和              laud：赞美，称赞

ideologically：思想上，意识形态上

"I believed that it was an undiluted African nationalism, not Marxism or multiracialism, that would liberate us," he wrote.

undiluted：未稀释的，未冲淡的        multiracialism：多种族主义

The ANC became the center of resistance to apartheid, the South African system of racial segregation, introduced after the National Party came to power in 1948. The system made racial distinctions into law, forbidding interracial relationships, mandating that the races live apart and requiring that all South Africans be registered by race.

racial segregation：种族隔离                  mandate：委托，授权

In response to the new restrictions, Mr. Mandela helped lead a series of strikes and demonstrations in which members used facilities reserved for whites. For his role in the campaign, Mr. Mandela was banned from appearing in public for three years, until 1955.

The following year, Mr. Mandela and several other executive members of the ANC were charged with high treason and conspiracy to overthrow the state—charges that carried the death penalty. The trial was delayed, and in 1961 all the defendants were acquitted.

high treason：叛国罪        conspiracy：阴谋，谋反       the death penalty：死刑              acquit：无罪释放

Years of confrontations with authorities, including the Sharpeville * of 1960 in which 69 protesters were killed by police, persuaded Mr. Mandela to abandon his commitment to Gandhian nonviolence. He organized a sabotage unit and went underground, disguised as a chef, a chauffeur or a "garden boy" with blue overalls and round glasses.

confrontation：对抗，对质      sabotage：破坏，怠工           disguised as：装扮成        chauffeur：汽车司机

Mr. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and put on trial for inciting strikes. Rather than defend himself against the charges, he indicted the apartheid state in a four-hour speech that became one of the founding texts of a postapartheid state. He was sentenced to five years in *.

put on trial：经受严重考验，受审        incite：煽动，激励

Months later, he was charged with sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, a capital crime, after a police raid on a Johannesburg farmhouse turned up plans for guerrilla warfare in South Africa. This time he was sentenced to life in *, along with seven other ANC members.

capital crime：死刑      raid：袭击，突袭，搜捕           guerrilla warfare：游击战

At the opening of what became known as the Rivonia trial, Mr. Mandela delivered another long speech that ended with his vision for a new South Africa, and what he was willing to sacrifice for it.

"During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," he said.

dedicate：奉献，专注

Mr. Mandela, then 46 years old, spent the next 18 years on Robben Island, a former leper colony turned maximum-security *.

leper colony：麻风病人隔离区

He entered Robben Island a militant who had failed to topple a government, but came out as a leader who succeeded in building a new nation on a platform of peace and reconciliation among races. Mr. Mandela would later credit * for uniting the country's future leaders, giving them time to talk through differences and forging a collective will to persevere. In an early sign of how he would reach across the political and racial divide, Mr. Mandela taught himself Afrikaans and used the language to charm his guards—and elicit more sympathetic treatment.

forge：锻造             persevere：坚持，不屈不挠          elicit：引出，得出

In general, though, conditions were harsh and just as segregated as the nation. Blacks were low men on the totem pole, forced to wear shorts—the uniform of young boys—while quarrying limestone and collecting seaweed.

totem pole：阶级，等级          quarry：采石场，挖掘            limestone：石灰岩

Mr. Mandela organized hunger strikes for improved conditions and kept in touch with other ANC members by hiding messages in food bowls, matchboxes or under toilet seats.

hunger strike：绝食*

In a battle with wardens over the right to wear long pants, Mr. Mandela spent weeks in solitary confinement. But the biggest battle he waged in * was for the survival of the antiapartheid movement, and that was one he fought with other political *ers. What he learned, Mr. Mandela said, was the value of banding together to share information, to endure hardships and to defy efforts to break the human spirit.

"It would be very hard, if not impossible, for one man alone to resist," he later wrote in "Long Walk to Freedom," his autobiography. "But the authorities' greatest mistake was to keep us together, for together our determination was reinforced."

Outside, the struggle in South Africa had grown increasingly violent. ANC and other antiapartheid fighters were arrested, detained and tortured. Mr. Mandela became the face who transcended fragmented freedom movements.

detain：扣留     torture：折磨，拷问，歪曲         transcend：胜过，超越

Mr. Mandela's greatest contribution was his decision to begin negotiations with the apartheid state while he was still in detention. The apartheid government, increasingly isolated internationally, was looking for a way out. South Africa kept negotiations secret, and Mr. Mandela didn't inform his ANC comrades.

detention：拘留，延迟       comrade：伙伴，同志们

"There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident he is leading his people the right way," he wrote in his memoir.

memoir：回忆录，自传

Five years of private meetings followed, with Mr. Mandela sitting down with various officials, and ultimately the president, Mr. de Klerk. In his opening speech to Parliament in 1990, Mr. de Klerk scrapped a ban on opposition parties and announced the release of political *ers, including Mr. Mandela. Talks later began between Mr. de Klerk's Afrikaner-led government and opposition parties, including Mr. Mandela's African National Congress.

"The season of violence is over," Mr. de Klerk said at the time. "The time for reconstruction and reconciliation has arrived."

Mr. Mandela was released on Feb. 11, 1990, under a blue sky. He emerged from the * gates and raised his fist to a roar from the crowds who had gathered to greet him.

Many whites supported Mr. Mandela and had joined protests for his release. But there remained unresolved anger from blacks over the apartheid state.

Blacks continued to stage protests, while ethnic tensions also flared. Armed with guns and knives, mostly Zulu supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party fought ANC loyalists in bloody street battles. At a time when Mr. Mandela had hoped officials could put aside distrust and differences, South Africa was swept up in violence.

ethnic tensions：种族关系紧张          flare：闪耀，爆发       sweep up：扫除，收拾干净

The violence derailed talks even before they began. Mr. Mandela balked at engaging the apartheid government after police in March 1990 fired on unarmed protesters outside Johannesburg, killing 12. Mr. Mandela said he told Mr. de Klerk he couldn't "talk about negotiations on the one hand and murder our people on the other."

derailed：出轨的           balk at：回避，畏缩

After a four-year transitional government, elections were held on April 27, 1994, open for the first time in South Africa's history to all men and women of voting age. Mr. Mandela was elected president.

In 1996, he and his wife divorced. Winnie Mandela was a popular antiapartheid figure in her own right but one whose alleged involvement in human-rights abuses and corruption had left her tainted. Mr. Mandela, though, chastised himself for not being around during his two decades in *, leaving Winnie to raise their children largely alone.

alleged：所谓的，声称的            tainted：污染的，感染的          chastise：惩罚，严惩，责骂

"I personally never regret the life [Winnie] and I tried to share together," Mr. Mandela told reporters at a news conference announcing his separation in 1992. "Circumstances beyond our control however dictated it should be otherwise."

After nearly three decades in *, Mr. Mandela was viewed by many as a political saint, although he was the first to dismiss such sterile descriptions. "Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying," he wrote in a 1975 letter to Winnie from * that he quoted in his book "Conversations With Myself."

sterile：贫瘠的，枯燥乏味的

But by ending white minority rule peacefully, through compromises with Mr. de Klerk, Mr. Mandela set a new standard for resolving conflicts far beyond South Africa. He showed how nations divided by ethnic, racial and religious violence and hate may begin to come together, even if that process at home has been more painful and taken longer than most people had hoped.

Unlike many African leaders hailed as heroes and freedom fighters, Mr. Mandela stepped down from office after only one term. He established three foundations in his name, dedicated to tolerance and preserving the history of the antiapartheid fight. He married his third wife, Graça Machel, on his 80th birthday, and settled into a spacious home in a leafy suburb of Johannesburg.

hailed as：称赞为

In the final years of his life, Mr. Mandela largely retreated from public view, spending time with his children and grandchildren in the rural village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, not far from where he was born.

retreat from：退出，放弃

Mr. Mandela's hospital visits sparked bouts of panic in government and the media. The anxiety underscored how hungry the public remained for information about the former political *er who became the country's first black president, a transition that changed how the world viewed South Africa and how South Africans viewed themselves.

—Patrick McGroarty and Devon Maylie contributed to this article.