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Local Officials, Dignitaries Honor Mandela At Morehouse

December 12th, 2013

As world leaders gathered in South Africa to pay their respects to Nelson Mandela, local officials and dignitaries, along with hundreds of citizens, joined Tuesday at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College to honor and remember the former South African president and civil rights icon.As heard on the radio

The mood was celebratory, with music and dance peppering more than three hours of speeches and prayer honoring the man who helped end apartheid, a system of racial segregation imposed by South Africa’s white minority.

Representatives from local government, the Carter Center and the King Center, among others, spoke of how Mandela touched their lives.

Former Atlanta mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young called on Morehouse students to take up Mandela’s fight for equality and recalled meeting the civil-rights leader soon after his release from prison.

“You are the heritage of Nelson Mandela, and we must complete the things that he dreamed about,” Young said.

He said Mandela’s work is incomplete, and that widening inequality exists in both in the United States and South Africa.

“I’m afraid I can’t believe Mandela or Martin Luther King are resting peacefully,” Young said. “I think they’re very, very disturbed. They’re very, very disturbed because we have not done more than we could have.”

The Rev. Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, recalled being arrested in Washington D.C. in 1985 during an anti-apartheid protest outside the U.S. South African Embassy. She said at the time she didn’t know what to expect from Mandela upon his release from prison.

“This man going from prison to presidency and being able to heal so many situations and so many people just in his act of not allowing himself not become overwhelmed by his own emotions is just incredible,” King said.

Mandela spent 27 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island for fighting against apartheid.

Fulton County Chairman John Eaves recalled visiting Mandela’s cell in 2007.

“Yes he lived to be the ripe old age of 95, but for more than a quarter of those years, he was locked away, only to emerge as a voice of reconciliation and forgiveness,” Eaves said.

Mandela died last week at his home in Johannesburg.

His body is now laying in state in Pretoria.