On the first trip I ever took to South Africa back in 2004 for a wine press junket to Capetown I booked a separate personal trip to Jo’burg to visit a dear friend who made sure i saw the Mandela House in Soweto (where Mandela lived 1946-1962) and equally importantly that I make the long-ish splishy splashy bumby boat ride out to Robben Island where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his total 27 years of incarceration —confined in a 2x2 meter cell whenever he (and other prisoners) were’t being forced to work in the island’s lime quarries. It was disturbing to stand outside of it peering in trying to imagine how a man 6ft + in stature endured LIVING in a cell not long enough for him to ever stretch out in when he slept. For 18 years. It was even more disheartening to learn that the food rations the prison doled out…. [POST CONTINUES HERE IF YOU WANT TO KEEP READING my observations on Mr. Mandela’s meager & highly racialized) food rations while at Robben Island 1964 to 1982 ]…
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This very large wall mural painting of Mandela stopped me in my tracks on a stroll in Williamsburg Brooklyn some moons ago. I have no context whatsoever for the image (when or where it was taken) but he looks so happy. And the quote is fab too.