The Obama's at Robben Island

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3. Yes, Mahalo, she! That's an all important part of Nelson Mandela that not many

can achieve, she..

“When I was in law school, in 1990, 1991, to see Nelson Mandela step forward after 27 years of captivity and not only help usher in democracy and majority rule, and one person, one vote in South Africa, but as importantly, for him to say, I embrace my former captors and my former oppressors, and believe in one nation and believe in judging people on the basis of their character and not their color — it gave me a sense of what is possible in the world when righteous people, when people of goodwill work together on behalf of a larger cause,” he said.

More on Mandela in Robben Island prison..

The Prisoner

In the winter of 1964, Nelson Mandela arrived on Robben Island where he would spend 18 of his 27 prison years. Confined to a small cell, the floor his bed, a bucket for a toilet, he was forced to do hard labor in a quarry. He was allowed one visitor a year for 30 minutes. He could write and receive one letter every six months. But Robben Island became the crucible which transformed him. Through his intelligence, charm and dignified defiance, Mandela eventually bent even the most brutal prison officials to his will, assumed leadership over his jailed comrades and became the master of his own prison. He emerged from it the mature leader who would fight and win the great political battles that would create a new democratic South Africa.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/prison/



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