Word: mandelas
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...Mandela may lack the rousing, bred-in-the-pulpit style of black orators like King or Jesse Jackson. His soft-spoken manner and unflappable dignity bespeak his background as a lawyer, a single-minded political organizer and a longtime prisoner still blinking a bit in the spotlight. But Mandela's magnetism is palpable, the consequence of his endurance and determination in the fight against South Africa's white-minority government. He fires the pride of African Americans and touches a deep desire in the psyche of Americans both black and white for a leader who might rekindle the biracial coalition...
...this era of cynicism, such legendary figures have all but disappeared in the U.S. Martyrdom at an early age was necessary to lift John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to the status of secular saints. Mandela is unique among heroes because he is a living embodiment of black liberation. Like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer enjoying their own eulogies from a hiding place in the church, he can bathe in the adulation of a worldwide throng yearning to, if not touch the hem of his garment, at least catch a glimpse of him whirring...
Such yearnings help explain the torrent of emotion that erupted when Mandela arrived in New York City last week on the first leg of a twelve-day, eight- city U.S. tour. For one brief, wistful moment, a city that had been pounded by a series of violent racial incidents seemed to vibrate with one voice shouting "Mandela!" More than 750,000 people lined the streets of lower Manhattan as Mandela sped by in a bulletproof glass chamber borne on a flatbed truck. At a rally on the steps of City Hall, Mandela was presented with the key to the city...
...next day Mandela captivated more than 3,000 people gathered at Riverside Church by joining in an exuberant rendition of the toyi-toyi, a South African dance of celebration. That night 100,000 people jammed Harlem's Africa Square, content to gaze at the visiting hero whose voice could barely be heard over a feeble public-address system. Later, 50,000 cheered Mandela at a rally in Yankee Stadium, where he delighted his audience by donning a baseball cap and declaring, "You now know who I am. I am a Yankee...
Despite its resemblance to a superstar tour, Mandela's visit to the U.S. has a deeply serious purpose. His objective is to shore up the A.N.C.'s negotiating position as it enters into talks with South African President F.W. de Klerk about the shape of a new constitution that would for the first time enfranchise the 26 million blacks who represent 68% of South Africa's population. Mandela is seeking assurances that the U.S. will not prematurely loosen the economic sanctions it imposed on Pretoria in 1986. He is also looking for "money in buckets" to help the A.N.C., unbanned...