Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990 TAG: 9006210268
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Everyone in sight - from street sweepers to a phalanx of dignitaries, including the last four mayors of New York - fell over each other to praise the 71-year-old African National Congress leader.
But with fatigue clearly bearing down on him, it remained to be seen whether Mandela would carry through the 16-hour schedule his hosts have planned for him today.
It is supposed to begin at 6:30 a.m. with a breakfast with the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Gracie Mansion, the mayor's residence, where Mandela and his wife spent their first night on U.S. shores.
As the day unfolds, Mandela is supposed to address an ecumenical church service, tape a two-hour TV program with ABC's Ted Koppel, and then address two nighttime mass rallies, one in Harlem and one at Yankee Stadium. If all goes as planned, Mandela will return to Gracie Mansion at 10:20 tonight.
Ahead of him lies another critical day Friday, when he leaves Gracie Mansion at 7:35 a.m. for a day of trying to be "on" for nine more sessions - with American business executives, foreign-policy experts, United Nations delegates and potential donors to the ANC.
Mandela on Wednesday stirred the crowd in front of New York's City Hall by holding forth a vision of a time when South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, would be a "liberated city."
Behind him was the stone-columned City Hall, which bears some architectural resemblance to the Cape Town City Hall, where Mandela gave his first speech on Feb. 11, the day he was freed from prison after 27 years.
It was a less fiery, wearier-looking Mandela who spoke to a few thousand chosen New Yorkers who had the political connections to latch onto one of the most coveted invitations in the city's history.
Mandela brought tears to the eyes of some when he invoked a vision of a future South Africa which would be able to apply the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . ."
His wife, Winnie, provided the most searing oratory when she asked all Americans to join South Africans "to launch the last onslaught on the racist Pretoria regime." Then, she said, South Africans could unite to "hoist the flag of the African National Congress as the new flag of South Africa."
The Mandelas, bowing to the insistence of State Department security men, rode inside a steel-and-glass bulletproof vehicle that made them virtually invisible to the onlookers.
by CNB