[Please note that these biographical notes describe the individuals at the time of their participation in the Nelson Mandela event at Harvard, and are likely out of date as of the re-creation of this website in 2014. With thanks, Emily Mace, Director]. …

FORGIVENESS: THE MANDELA PRINCIPLE
Rev. Victor H. Carpenter
The First Church in Belmont, Massachusetts

According to the Boston Globe, 25 thousand people attended the convocation at Harvard honoring Nelson Mandela. I was there. I felt blessed. I felt terrific, until I started reading the Harvard produced publication that showcased the occasion.…

A CONFLICTED RELATIONSHIP
Harvard supported South Africa through investments, but partially divested under protest
Adam A. Sofen and Alan E. Wirzbicki
Crimson Staff Writers

At a speech at the Institute of Politics (IOP) in 1985, South African Bishop and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu issued a plea to the richest University on earth.…

BORN INTO RACISM, MANDELA OVERCOMES
By Jenny E. Heller
Crimson Staff Writer

There was nothing unusual about the small ferry as it chugged across the Cape Town harbor and dropped anchor at Robben Island.

Nothing unusual until the gang plank stretched across the water and out stepped a black prisoner of the elite, white regime, a prisoner whose name would become synonymous with the struggle for equality and dignity for blacks and whites in South Afirica.…

HONORARY DEGREE MAKES HISTORY
Rachel P. Kovner
Crimson Staff Writer

Nelson Mandela joins an elite group of out-of-season honorary degree recipients which includes George Washington and Winston Churchill.

George Washington was awarded his degree in 1776, shortly after driving the British army out of Boston.…

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Mandela Wooed by African Initiative

ANDREW K. MANDEL

Crimson Staff Writer

Nelson Mandela has said “no” to Harvard before.

For years since Mandela’s release from prison and ascendence to the South African presidency, the University Marshal’s Office has tried to arrange for him to speak in Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement Day and accept an honorary doctorate.…

Part Two:

HARVARD STUDENTS SPEAK OUT 

NELSON MANDELA COMES TO HARVARD

Articles and Photos from

A HISTORIC VISIT

A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT OF THE HARVARD CRIMSON

Published by Harvard College Students

September 18, 1998…

THE UNIVERSITY CHOIR 

FAIR HARVARD
(verses 1 and 4)

Fair Harvard! we all to thy Jubilee throng,
And with blessings surrender thee o’er,
By these Festival rites, from the Age that is past
To the Age that is waiting before.
O Relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth,
That hast long kept their memory warm.

MARGARET H. MARSHALL

A native of South Africa, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, which is the oldest court in the United States, operating under the oldest, still functioning constitution anywhere in the world

In 1967, as a South African student leader, I attended the funeral of Chief Albert Luthuli, great President of the African National Congress and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.…

NELSON MANDELA

President of the Union of South Africa

Mr. President, Members of the Convocation, Members of the University, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

When I was in prison, a young lady who is now the principal of a leading university in South Africa, came to see me.…