The force behind the South African anti-apartheid revolution and the country's first black president, Nelson Mandela, has passed away at 95 years of age today.

After having spent three months in the hospital for a lung infection, Mandela was being treated at home for his illness.

Jacob Zuma, the current president of South Africa, released a statement confirming the news: "Our nation has lost its greatest son... What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves... Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell."

Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years, helped lead South Africa away from white-minority rule in the 1990's with peaceful resistance. For this, Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and has since become an icon in the fight for racial equality.