On May 9, 1994, South Africa’s newly elected Parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the first president of the post-apartheid era.

The New York Times wrote, “The power that had belonged to whites since they first settled on this cape 342 years ago passed today to a Parliament as diverse as any in the world, a cast of proud survivors who began their work by electing Nelson Mandela to be the first black president of South Africa.”