I was at a meeting with the education program at Spelman College today when this was announced. We had a moment of silence.
I think I was one of only 2 or 3 people in the room who might have remembered a time when Mandela was in prison. I was an undergraduate when the Reagan administration was fighting off the idea of economic sanctions against Botha’s South Africa.
What amazed me at the time, and still does today, is how he never held a grudge against the people who abused him. My congressman, John Lewis, has the same quality. Both were beaten nearly to death and seem to still be able to love the people who beat them.
I grew up in the last dying vestiges of “separate but equal.” If you saw my elementary school class pictures, you’d think I grew up in Norway and not Georgia. I told my students when Obama was elected that I never thought I’d live to see that day. That’s how much the world has changed in living memory, and Mandela was one of the driving forces of that change.
There was a time when giants walked the Earth. Most of them have left us now. It is our responsibility to honor those who remain while we still can.
