:: Mandela in America

:: “When they landed in New York at JFK, the streets were lined with people as far as the eye could see. “In Brooklyn, Madiba asked the driver to stop when we passed a baseball diamond, where hundreds of Americans had gathered hoping he would speak to them.
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“He got out and stood on a flatbed truck, and as he spoke about the struggle and inequalities of apartheid in South Africa, the crowd would scream in unison, ‘It’s just like that here!’ He said later that while the South African struggle had taken such inspiration from the American civil rights movement, that he had no idea the extent to which Americans of color identified with the struggle in South Africa so viscerally.
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“In Detroit, I saw in the Mandelas a feeling that they felt very much at home. And one of the great moments for the Mandelas — in Detroit and throughout the entire journey — was when they met Rosa Parks. They were so happy to meet her as she was to meet them — the memory still brings tears to my eyes — it was like they had all met family.”
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Words and images by Detroit Metro Times, Photographer David Turnley