SAF130630AA 003JOHANNESBURG — President Obama paid tribute to South Africa's first black president Sunday, saying Nelson Mandela's long struggle against apartheid and for equality "showed us that one man's courage can move the world.''

Obama, the first black U.S. president, visited the wind-swept Robben Island prison off the coast at Cape Town where Mandela was confined for much of his 27 years as a political prisoner. The president later told young South Africans that the critically ill former leader's vision of equality and opportunity should remain theirs as well.

On Robben Island, Obama stood with his wife Michelle and daughters Malia, 15, and Sasha, 12, in the cramped cell that was home to Mandela for 18 of the 27 years he was in prison before his release in 1990. They viewed the lime quarry where Mandela worked at hard labor and contracted the lung damage that still afflicts him.

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