Mandela and MLK: What They Had in Common

See what the two iconic figures had in common.

Fighters - While Martin Luther King Jr. fought the evils of racism and racial segregation in the United States, Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to fighting South Africa’s system of racism and segregation called apartheid.  (Photos from left: AP Photo/Peter Dejong, file, Reg Lancaster/Express/Getty Images)
Name Dropping - There are more than 900 streets named after Martin Luther King Jr. around the world. Nelson Mandela has had more than 85 streets named after him, in addition to more than 25 schools, universities and educational institutions.(Photo: Giorgio Fochesato/Getty Images)
Cell Mates - Both King and Mandela were jailed for their beliefs and activism. King famously wrote his Letter From a Birmingham Jail while detained in Alabama and Mandela spent 27 years in prison for treason.(Photo: RDA/Getty Images, Reuters/Landov)Iconic Spouses - Although Nelson Mandela was married three times over the course of his life, his second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (left), came to be known as a freedom fighter in her own right.Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife, Coretta Scott King (right), also became an iconic figure in the civil rights movement.(Photo: Reuters/International Defence and Aid Fund, J. Wilds/Keystone/Getty Images)

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Fighters - While Martin Luther King Jr. fought the evils of racism and racial segregation in the United States, Nelson Mandela dedicated his life to fighting South Africa’s system of racism and segregation called apartheid. (Photos from left: AP Photo/Peter Dejong, file, Reg Lancaster/Express/Getty Images)

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