Profound Change
Twenty years ago Nelson Mandela was a 71 year-old prisoner on Robben Island in South Africa. Barack Obama was a 28 year-old law student at Harvard.
Given the racial histories of South Africa and the United States, even the wildest dreamer or the most reckless gambler would not have wagered that these men would be elected president of their respective countries.
How do we impress upon those who can’t remember 1989 the profundity of their elections and the once-thought-impossible change inherent in those elections?
I wonder if television or Hollywood docu-dramas of changes in racial attitudes in South Africa and the United States during the past twenty years would be a wise beginning.
David Evans