History has a habit of smoothing the rough edges and
bringing out the positives when it comes to looking back on favorably viewed
leaders. The passing of time tends to wipe away some of the negatives and bring
out the best decisions and aspects of a leader’s character. They say time heals
all wounds.
With Nelson Mandela, however, it seems every accolade he has
acquired over the years has been earned through steadfast dedication to his
beliefs, even in the face of the greatest opposition. For Mandela, the time has
healed his wounds.
Mandela passed away last week at the age of 95, bringing an
end to the storied life of one the world’s true great liberators. Once a
militant anti-apartheid activist, he rose up as a unifying voice for freedom
for a democratic South Africa .
Mandela was born in 1918
in Mvezo , South
Africa , and as his education increased, so
did his passion for justice for his countrymen. In his autobiography, Mandela
wrote that his struggle for civil rights involved, “a steady accumulation of
one thousand slights, one thousand indignities, one thousand unremembered moments,
[that] produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system
that impoverished my people.”