CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Thirty years ago, Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years of imprisonment by South Africa’s apartheid regime and instantly galvanized the country, and the world, to dismantle the brutal system of racial oppression. Raising a clenched-fist salute and striding purposefully from the gates of Victor Verster prison, Mandela, then […]
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Perhaps nowhere in today’s South Africa is the country’s inequality on more dramatic display than in the neighboring Johannesburg suburbs of Sandton and Alexandra. With its gleaming high-rises and lush estates, Sandton is known as Africa’s richest square mile. Alexandra, a onetime home to Nelson Mandela, is a squalid, cramped and crime-infested […]
While in South Africa for the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah made a stop at his grandmother’s house in Soweto. Noah gave viewers a tour of the neighborhood he grew up in and spoke to his grandma about Nelson Mandela and the struggles they faced during apartheid. “What’s amazing about this place is that […]
Apartheid ended in 1994 but Cape Town, South Africa is still segregated. Many beaches in the ‘Mother City’ remain predominately white and it’s the only province of South Africa not run by the African National Congress. Most Cape Town Blacks live in shacks outside of the city – the so-called Cape Town flats. If you’re poor, […]
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Joyous crowds of black South Africans celebrated the unveiling of a new Nelson Mandela statue in Pretoria on Monday while many white Afrikaners on the other side of town expressed their worries about the country’s future as they celebrated the 175th anniversary of a bloody victory over the indigenous Zulus. […]
QUNU, South Africa (AP) — Anti-apartheid champion Nelson Mandela was buried in his home village on Sunday after a funeral that mixed ancient tribal rituals with a display of the might of the new, integrated South Africa. Military officers, both black and white, rolled Mandela’s flag-draped coffin to the family burial plot in the village […]
QUNU, South Africa (AP) — The rural home where Nelson Mandela grew up in the 1920s had mud walls, a grass thatched roof, and a floor polished smooth with cow dung. When throngs flood Mandela’s hometown on Sunday for his burial, they will visit a simple place steeped in old ways but which now has […]
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At Nelson Mandela’s memorial, the crowd applauded dignitaries and even cheered the last apartheid-era president. But spectators booed South African leader Jacob Zuma, embarrassing him on an international stage and reflecting challenges that the ruling party, once led by Mandela, faces ahead of elections next year. “Can we please be disciplined?” a […]
12/09/13- Roland Martin talks with Caroline Hunter, a former chemist who worked for the Polaroid Corporation back in the 1970s, who played a huge part in the divestment movement in South Africa. Hunter and her fellow colleagues established the Polaroid Workers Revolutionary Movement to shed light on the company’s involvement in South Africa’s apartheid. At […]
Dr. Maya Angelou, a living legend among us, has delivered a powerful, gripping tribute to Nelson Mandela on behalf of the American people. Released by…
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — He was with Nelson Mandela during all those years the anti-apartheid icon was imprisoned on Robben Island. And, like millions around the world, he has been hit hard by Mandela’s death. Yet this South African was not one of Mandela’s fellow prisoners. Christo Brand was his jailer. Such was […]
Nelson Mandela, a man who survived the most pressing trials of South Africa’s apartheid history, has passed away at age 95. Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994. In a special speech, President Barack Obama said that his very first political action was in protest to apartheid in South Africa, […]
