Lonnie reminisces about the words of Nelson Mandela.

In 1997, I was lecturing in South Africa. One day I found myself in the small city of Pietermaritzburg, which is located in Durban in Kwa Zulu Natal. This city has a significant Indian population and it was the site of Mahatma Gandhi's first brush with the racism of South Africa in 1903. While I was there, Nelson Mandela came to this city that was the ancestral homeland of his political and tribal rivals, the Zulus. He was to receive "the freedom of the city." I was privileged to sit on the podium as Mandela gave his speech. As is his custom, he spoke in several languages—from Xhosa to Zulu to N'debele—about his struggles against apartheid. And then in English he spoke about his 27 years in the prison on Robben Island. He said one of the things that gave him strength and substance was the history of the struggle for racial equality in America. He spoke passionately and eloquently of how American abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass inspired him and helped him to believe that freedom and racial transformation were possible in South Africa.

Mandela's words helped me to remember the power of African American culture.