Few women or men live among us today who may be considered worldwide transformative figures. I am referring to persons who forge political, social and economic change.
One such person is Madiba, an elderly gentleman from the Xhosa clan of South Africa who currently clings to life in a hospital bed in Preoria.
Before receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous other awards, Madiba suffered almost 30 years in prison, a political martyr unjustly confined for espousing democratic ideals denounced as communist propaganda.
Madiba grew up in the world of South African apartheid, a time in which black South Africans were second class citizens and the entire governmental regime was controlled by white elites.
Long after the civil rights movement in the United States and a generation beyond the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in our country, South Africa remained segregated in all aspects of life.
Madiba, as a young man, influenced by the cultural shifts in the United States, became politically active in South Africa, and in the early 1960s, authorities charged and imprisoned him for inciting workers' strikes and other political activities. The white South African government deemed Madiba to be a communist agitator and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
He spent almost two decades in a damp concrete cell measuring 8 feet by 7 feet with nothing more than a mat on which to sleep. Within this small space, Madiba continued to write and promote his ideas for a revolution within South Africa, awakening the country's anti-apartheid sentiment.
During the Cold War through the 1980s, Madiba had no realistic opportunity for freedom, but the fall of the Berlin wall opened the political doors for his release from political enslavement.
After extensive pressure from within South Africa, and with the world watching, free elections were held for the Office of the Presidency between incumbent white President de Klerk and Madiba. With black South African votes all being counted for the first time, Madiba ascended to the presidency in 1994 and, with this new day, apartheid was officially declared dead.
While president, Madiba oversaw a peaceful transference of power and managed to lead a multicultural government into the modern world. Long a fan of soccer, Madiba helped bring a FIFA World Cup to South Africa in 2010, where he made his last public appearance. Not just a sporting event, the world celebrated the emergence of a new democratic South Africa and saluted Madiba's pivotal role in the process.
Madiba will be leaving this world soon, but he helped eradicate his country's apartheid and in the process solidified himself in the annals of history. We have Lincoln and Washington. South Africa has Nelson Mandela.