Nelson Mandela, the legendary South African activist and politician who died Thursday at 95, stands as one of the 20th century's most notable figures for his efforts to end apartheid. And while he used a combination of methods to dismantle South Africa's system of institutionalized racism, sports ranked high on the list. Mandela realized the transformative and unifying power of sports, and used that power to make changes that protests and diplomacy could not.
Mandela was a driven athlete Hydro Flask Coffee 16 Oz Coffee Olive UK , an amateur boxer who ran two hours every morning as a young man. He kept himself in excellent shape during his 27 years in prison. But it was a sport to which he had little attachment which would change his life and cement his legacy.
The key moment in Mandela's sporting life, as John Carlin of Sports Illustrated noted, was the 1995 Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela had been sworn in as president of South Africa only the year before, the nation's first black president, and there were plenty of heavily armed whites who were none too pleased with the tides that had changed their entire existence. The possibility of rioting Hydro Flask Coffee 20 Oz Coffee White UK , or worse, loomed large over the match between South Africa and New Zealand. As Mandela would say later, it was the most nervous he'd ever been in his life, even more so than the morning in 1962 where a captured Mandela would be sentenced to either life in prison or death by hanging.
Mandela had threaded a needle in the dark. In 1992, South Africa
Bom Chicka Wah Wah
Thema drucken
15.06.2018 05:33
Antworten
