Obama: Mandela 'took history in his hands'

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama remembered former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, who died Thursday at 95, as a man “who took history in his hands and bent the arc of moral universe towards justice. God bless his memory.”

Obama, delivering remarks at the White House briefing room after South Africa President Jacob Zuma announced the death of the anti-apartheid hero, said as a young man he protested apartheid–one of his first political acts.

Mandela’s legacy is a free and democratic South Africa.

“We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again,” Obama said. “..Never discount the difference that one person can make,” Obama said.