Much like the system of apartheid that Nelson Mandela suffered 27 years in prison on Robben Island vigorously fighting against, Mr. Bell’s post-antebellum America left Blacks without full citizenship rights. His motto “Equality Before the Law” graced every masthead and served as the underlying philosophy of the publication. My remarks that day focused on Mr. Bell’s tenacious and unrelenting fight for the democratic ideals of freedom and equality for all. Of course, as I spoke to the room of newspaper owners and executives, I thought of Mr. Mandela’s legacy.
I learned about South Africa’s apartheid system as a student in Professor Susan Meisenhelder’s South African Literature class at Cal State San Bernardino. It was the mid-1980s and California college campuses were at the epicenter of the divestment movement. Professor Meisenhelder had just returned from serving as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Botswana, and through that class introduced us to the sons and daughters of South Africa through its canonical writers: Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee, Bessie Head, Andre Brink, Althol Fugard and others. In a slim book “Poets to the People,” an edited collection of South African protest poems, I first heard the name Mandela. Within the pages of that book the writers, exiled poet-activists, painted a portrait of a disciplined freedom fighter that, while still physically imprisoned at the time, continued to serve as the symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement.
It was during that class that we helped Professor Meisenhelder organize a regional demonstration, joining students and faculty across the state and nation, in calling for economic sanctions against South Africa. The global pressure eventually proved too much for the South African government. When Mr. Mandela was eventually released from prison he remained committed to the ideals of democracy and helped usher in a new era by leading his country out of a system of racial inequality and oppression and into a democratic future.
When I mentioned to a good friend that the lack of diversity at the association meeting surprised me, he remarked that there is a certain irony in the fact that I was speaking to an audience of primarily White male publishers on a day the global community was reflecting on and remembering Mr. Mandela’s unwavering commitment to racial equality and inclusion.
His comment reminded me that we must take this opportunity to not only reflect, but to act. Mr. Mandela’s legacy belongs to all of us, whether we’re publishers, doctors, teachers, bankers, artists, athletes, scientists, students, professors, lawyers, we must look around our world, shine the light on inequality, speak out against oppression, and promote the democratic ideals of freedom and equality for all. If Mr. Mandela was able to do this from his prison cell on Robben Island, imagine how much more we can do from where we are today.