Nelson Mandela was born on 18th July 1918. He spent 18 of 27 years in prison on Robben Island. He died on the 13th of December 2013.
This was so sad for our country because he was the best President we ever had. He was brought up by his mother who was a Methodist and he followed in her footsteps to go to a Methodist school.
Later he went to Fort Hare University where he and his friend Oliver Thambo were expelled.
When Mandela was 16, he was sent to a boarding school in a town several hundred miles away.
Upon his graduation in 1937 at the age of 19, Mandela enrolled in Healdtown, a Methodist college.
He was one of those people who were definitely not racist even after his long stay at Robben Island. He fixed most of the problems in this country when he became the first Black President of South by pushing sport. This is how Nelson Mandela made us into a rainbow nation. Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Address, Pretoria 9 May 1994.
In 1961 he said the following at his trial.
We are not anti-white, we are against white supremacy … we have condemned racialism no matter by whom it is professed."
Nelson Mandela, defence statement during the Treason Trial, 1961.
With this international way of developing our sport in the country it went very well. What many people do not know was that he was offered his freedom 3 times if he decided not to carry on with his activism of earlier times.
He refused every time. Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Address, Pretoria 9 May 1994.
"Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual. We must construct that people-centred society of freedom in such a manner that it guarantees the political liberties and the human rights of all our citizens.
Nelson Mandela, speech at the opening of the South African parliament, Cape Town 25 May 1994. He made this a good country to live in, but things changed when he was not President anymore. He also won the Nobel Prize and is known all over the world.
All children in school should really learn something from this great man as he is part of their history now and there are not many born like him.
Sport was definitely a very important way for him to try and fix things. For many years we did not participate in other countries and they did not come here.
Because of him all athletes have freedom now and can go and participate where they want to.
The Rugby Word Cup was his doing. and that was one of the biggest and best breakthroughs we ever had in this country.
He loved the sport and was at all the games and met all the Rugby players.
Everyone who ever read my posts will know that I am a rugby fanatic, and that is why he will always be a hero to me.