Nelson Mandela International Day, July 18
For freedom, justice and democracy

David N. Dinkins was the influential Mayor of New York City who facilitated Nelson Mandela's first official visit to New York and the USA in June 1990, soon after his release from 27 years of political imprisonment. He has met Mandela and the two men have spent many good times together discussing many issues. In his office in New York, UN Radio's Ben Malor asked him how he would describe Mandela, the man?
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Gay McDougall stood right beside Nelson Mandela when the anti-apartheid icon voted for the first time in his life, in April 1994. Gay, who is currently a UN Independent Expert for Minorities, had spent a good amount of her life fighting apartheid and racism. She raised funds for the support and legal fight to free many political prisoners in apartheid South Africa. She ended up becoming a member of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, which successfully conducted the country's first multi-racial elections - something that many thought and feared could not happen. At her home in New York, Ben Malor asked her first, her thoughts about Mandela Day?
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Reverend Jesse Jackson, the eminent American civil rights leader, may have been the first African American to meet the South African leader following his release from prison, as he told UN Radio's Gerry Adams.
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More UN Radio programmes and interviews on Mandela