Dignitaries and presidents, media stars, and celebrities from around the world converged on South Africa to pay their respects to Nelson Mandela, the warrior for racial justice. While, in America, racial justice is a still a battle.
In 1918, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born into racial oppression. By 1948, South Africa legalized a racial segregation system called apartheid, based on America’s “separate but equal” doctrine which separated the races from white, or Afrikaans, and then into racial groups – black, colored and Indian.
Trained as a lawyer, Nelson Mandela challenged legal segregation and oppression of his people at a time when civil rights attorneys in America were fighting segregation. Mandela and Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm.
Mandela joined the African National Congress and led a campaign of guerrilla warfare against his government. Captured and labeled a terrorist, and sentenced to life for which he served 27 years, mostly in solitary confinement. On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked free from prison at age 62.
Unlike Americans, Mandela did not deny hundreds of years of racial oppression. Denial could not bring about the forgiveness that Nelson Mandela offered to his fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipient, F.W. de Klerk, the last White President of South Africa.
In 1995, South African convened a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Black South Africans testified on national television to life in slums without running water or toilets. They spoke of murder, torture and kidnapping by police. Students and teachers testified to schools without books, chairs and heat. South African men and women spoke of searches, beatings, arrests and living with constant fear.
However, America has had no real Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead, it creates commissions with limited power after racial unrest and then publishes a report. Without a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, America’s racial pain will be left to fester.
In America, where Supreme Court decisions deny the reality of racial discrimination in voting, employment, education and laws such as “stop, question and frisk” and “Stand Your Ground,” time alone will not heal past racial wounds.
Segregation laws ended years before apartheid was defeated. But, America’s racial practices continue and tensions rise. Forgiveness is difficult when racial profiling, poor education and employment discrimination remains. At Mandela’s funeral, President Obama said, “Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done.”
Then, Mandela’s legacy leaves open the possibility of racial reconciliation – even in America.
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an associate professor of constitutional law at John Jay College and a legal correspondent covering the U.S. Supreme Court, United Nations and major court cases.
