© Nelson Mandela Foundation/Matthew Willman
It is easy to break down and destroy.
The heroes are those who make peace and build.- Nelson Mandela
The Long Walk: Choose the Legacy — Nelson Mandela Interactive Choose your Own Adventure Website
The website is an interactive digital experience designed to introduce users to Nelson Mandela’s life through ten defining moments in his journey. Rather than presenting Mandela’s history as a static timeline, the site invites users to make choices at key pressure points - from student activism and the Defiance Campaign to Robben Island, negotiations, reconciliation, and his global legacy. After each decision, users learn about Mandela’s true journey and see how closely their choices align with his historical path through a live “Mandela Accuracy” tracker. The experience combines storytelling, animation, visual design, and a live leaderboard to make Mandela’s legacy more engaging and accessible, especially for audiences who may not already know the history in depth. It aims to help users understand not only what Mandela achieved, but the difficult choices, values, and sacrifices that shaped his long walk toward justice, equality, and human dignity.
Secretary-General's Message for 2026
Informal Plenary Meeting & Events
Nelson Mandela International Day is marked by the United Nations General Assembly with an informal plenary meeting and an annual NYC volunteer event in honour of Mandela. Details are forthcoming.
Mandela Day: Free at Last – Mandela Day Playlist
"Mandela Day: Free at Last" is the soundtrack to the year Mandela walked free. It moves from the songs topping the charts the week of his release in February 1990, through the protest anthems that helped get him out, to the music of freedom and homecoming. Out now on major streaming platforms – click the links below to listen now!
UN Chamber Music Society Concert
Virtual, Saturday July 18 — 9:00 a.m. EST (New York)/ 3:00 p.m. SAST (South Africa)
A virtual concert in celebration of Mandela Day will be streamed online.
Virtual Public Service Activity
Global —
Take the ActNow x Mandela Day challenge – to limit global warming and take care of our planet.
ActNow is the United Nations campaign for individual action on climate change and sustainability.
Every one of us can help limit global warming and take care of our planet. By changing our habits and making choices that have less harmful effects on the environment, we can tackle the climate emergency and build a more sustainable world.
As Nelson Mandela said, "We must never forget that it is our duty to protect this environment."
Radio Programme
Looking back at the struggle against apartheid and the campaign for Mandela's release in which the United Nations played an important role — special programme for the first commemorative Mandela Day in 2010.
What is Mandela Day?
On 18 July every year, we invite you to mark Nelson Mandela International Day by making a difference in your communities. Everyone has the ability and the responsibility to change the world for the better! Mandela Day is an occasion for all to take action and inspire change.
67 years in service of humanity
Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity — as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.
How did the day come about?
November 2009 - in recognition of the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom, UN General Assembly declares 18 July "Nelson Mandela International Day". Resolution A/RES/64/13 recognizes Mandela’s values and his dedication to the service of humanity in: conflict resolution; race relations; promotion and protection of human rights; reconciliation; gender equality and the rights of children and other vulnerable groups; the fight against poverty; the promotion of social justice. The resolution acknowledges his contribution to the struggle for democracy internationally and the promotion of a culture of peace throughout the world.
Nelson Mandela Rules
December 2015 - the General Assembly decides to extend the scope of Nelson Mandela International Day to also be utilized in order to promote humane conditions of imprisonment, raise awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society, and to value the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance.
General Assembly resolution A/RES/70/175 not only adopted the revised United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, but also approved that they should be known as the "Nelson Mandela Rules" in order to honour the legacy of the late President of South Africa, who spent 27 years in prison in the course of his struggle referred to above.