His day is done.
Is done.
The news came on the wings of a wind
Reluctant to carry its burden.
Nelson Mandela’s day is done.
The news, expected and still unwelcome
Reached us in the United States and suddenly
Our world became somber.
Our skies were leadened
His day is done.
We see you, South African people
Standing speechless at the slamming
Of that final door
Through which no traveler returns.
Our spirits reach out to you
Bantu, Zulu, Xhosa, Boer
We think of you
And your Son of Africa,
Your father
Your One More Wonder of the World.
We send our souls to you
As you reflect upon
Your David armed with
A mere stone facing down
The Mighty Goliath,
Man of strength Gideon,
Emerging Triumphant
Although born into the brutal embrace of Apartheid
Scarred by the savage atmosphere of racism,
Unjustly imprisoned
In the bloody maws of South African dungeons.
Would the man survive?
Could the man survive?
His answer strengthened men and women
Around the world.
In the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas
On the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco,
In Chicago’s loop
In New Orleans Mardi Gras
In New York City’s Times Square
We watched as the hope of Africa sprang
Through the prison’s doors
His stupendous heart intact
His gargantuan will
Hale and hearty
He had not been crippled by brutes
Nor was his passion for the rights
Of human beings
Diminished by twenty-seven years of imprisonment
Even here in America
We felt the cool
Refreshing breeze of freedom
When Nelson Mandela took
The seat of Presidency
In his Country
Where formerly he was not even allowed to vote
We were enlarged by tears of pride
As we saw Nelson Mandela’s
Former prison guards
Invited, courteously, by him to watch
From the front rows
His inauguration.
We saw him accept
The world’s award in Norway
With the grace and gratitude
Of the Solon in Ancient Roman Courts
And the confidence of African Chiefs
From ancient royal stools.
No sun outlasts its sunset
But will rise again
And bring the dawn
Yes, Mandela’s day is done,
Yet we, his inheritors
Will open the gates wider
For reconciliation and we will respond
Generously to the cries
Of Blacks and Whites,
Asian, Hispanics,
The poor who live piteously
On the floor of our planet
He has offered us understanding
We will not withhold forgiveness
Even from those who do not ask
Nelson Mandela’s day is done
We confess it in tearful voices
Yet we lift our own to say
Thank You.
Thank You, Our Gideon.
Thank You, Our David.
Our great courageous man
We will not forget you
We will not dishonor you
We will remember and be glad
That you lived among us
That you taught us
And
That you loved us
All!
~ Maya Angelou
A Tribute to the Life of Nelson Mandela
By Joe Richman
It was on April 20th, 1964, in a stuffy South African courtroom, that Nelson Mandela stood up and - rather than testify in his own defense - he gave a speech.
"I am prepared to die." Those are the last 5 words of the speech, and they are well known today. Less well known are the 10,693 other words in the speech. It lasted four hours.
An audio recording of the speech was made by a court stenographer on a dictabelt, a plastic recording that was never intended to preserve history. The recording was lost and forgotten for almost 4 decades, until it was discovered in the basement archive of the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
I know that basement well. It may sound odd, but I spent many happy weeks there in 2003 surrounded by stacks of reel-to-reel tapes, searching for sound to tell the history of apartheid for our series, Mandela: An Audio History. I remember one day, trying to listen to a reel of tape that was in bad shape and had no label. I kept splicing the tape back together so it would play. Soon I realized I was listening to a raw recording of the prosecutor's opening statement at Mandela's trial. It had never been broadcast before. Most people - even those who had been on trial - didn't know the tape existed. Many of the trial recordings had been erased decades earlier by the apartheid government. It was thrilling to hear the actual words. But it wasn't until somebody in the courtroom coughed that I could really hear the echo and dimensions of the room, the stillness of the afternoon, the hushed anticipation of the trial. The cough put me in that courtroom.
From that basement and many others, we collected 50 hours of archival recordings for our series Mandela: An Audio History, and we conducted many more hours of contemporary interviews. The original plan was to do a comprehensive biography of a man. But with every archival recording we found, every interview we did, the story veered slowly away from Nelson Mandela as an individual and more toward a collective history.
Mandela did the same thing in his own life.
When he uttered those now-famous words: "I am prepared to die" in 1964, he was speaking not only for his 7 co-defendants, but also for a growing movement. Mandela was appointed to become the symbol of the struggle against apartheid. In interviews after he was released in 1990, Mandela would often avoid using the first-person. He resisted talking about himself, rather than the party.
As a radio producer, I am drawn to the hidden and untold stories of history. I remember standing in that basement archive, surrounded by tapes, thinking about all the stories that might be lost on unmarked reels, and all the stories that were never recorded. So many of the people who sacrificed in real ways while fighting against apartheid have died over the last decade. Some of them may still be remembered in years to come, others will be forgotten.
Mandela was the voice for all of them.
Joe Richman is the founder of Radio Diaries and the producer of Mandela: An Audio History, along with Sue Jaye Johnson and Ben Shapiro.
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