On Nelson Mandela International Day, which falls on July 18 and is known across social media as #MandelaDay, I’d like to reflect on the legacy of this towering world leader. My education about the scourge of racism began with two popular songs about apartheid. One was released in 1980 by Peter Gabriel about activist Steven Biko called “Biko” and the other in 1985 by Steven Van Zandt, who plays guitar in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, called “Sun City.”
On the latter, he and other rockers vow not to perform in a place of the same name to protest segregated South Africa. This is how I learned that segregation was alive and well in parts of the world even after it started to crumble in the United States decades earlier. And it led to lessons about Mandela, who was jailed and lost his freedom for years in order to make a change in his country. So as we as we look beyond the end of apartheid and where we are today, we’ve come a long way and have seen the first African-American ever elected president.
We also have organizations like Black Lives Matter to raise awareness about institutional racism. But if we dig just a little bit deeper, there’s still a lot of strife alongside microaggressions that are subconsciously being committed. Mandela pushed for equality of all human beings, and having a day set aside to honor his noble work enables us to take stock of where we are and where we need to go. I think the healer here is time, but also a willingness to reassess our hidden personal preferences, be better listeners and more open minded with one another.