If we are lucky, such people appear every couple of generations, the Transcendent Ones who elevate not only their own nation, but all of humanity. We celebrate one such man today on
INTERNATIONAL NELSON MANDELA DAY!
His story is South Africa’s story, his triumph was South Africa’s glory.
The whole world knows Nelson Mandela’s story; his suffering, his accomplishments, the defeat of Apartheid, and his complete rejection of vengeance and discrimination when elected president of the nation that imprisoned him for 27 years and oppressed his people for centuries.
Like Gandhi and King, he showed us a better way, and is not merely of one nation, he is of the World, he is ours.
Mandela was a genius risen from rigid tribal custom to university student, to boxer, to politician, to rebel, to political prisoner and finally, to world statesman. He was a leader of both ideas and ethics, and a rock of moral stability even as traumatic public and personal events unfolded.
Nelson Mandela lived to see the fledgling country he reinvented thrive and grow, leaving us in December of 2013 at the age of 95. The entire world mourned a giant, a beloved native son, one of ours no matter where we call home. Nelson Mandela (7/18/1918 – 12/5/2013)
•Suggested Activities: Let Freedom Ring