Some works inspired by Mandela
Print Edition
Movies
Some of Hollywood’s greatest actors played him on film. Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier, gifted at conveying fiery resilience and good-natured restraint, was an obvious choice to portray him for a TV movie in 1997. Morgan Freeman, another Oscar-winning actor of such august bearing that his roles have ranged from judges to God, played Mandela in 2009’s “Invictus,” directed by Clint Eastwood, about a South African rugby team. Danny Glover also starred in a TV movie about his life, while Mandela himself made a cameo at the end of Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” released in 1992. “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” starring Idris Elba and based on Mandela’s autobiography, was just released this month.
Songs
Songs protesting apartheid and praising Mandela were written throughout the 1980s and up through his release from prison in 1990, from Eddy Grant’s “Gimme Hope Jo’Anna” to Steve Van Zandt’s all-star “Sun City,” featuring Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis and many other performers. They called for artists to refuse to play in South Africa. Songs directly about Mandela included a Bono-Joe Strummer collaboration, “46664;” “Free Nelson Mandela,” by Special A.K.A., an off-shoot of the Specials, and Simple Minds’ “Mandela Day.”
Literature
Nadine Gordimer’s 1987 novel “A Sport of Nature” prophesized the end of apartheid and included a liberation leader based on Mandela. Poems about Mandela date back at least to the 1970s with “And I Watch It in Mandela,” by South Africa’s John Matshikiza. Jekwu Ikeme’s “When Mandela Goes,” published in 2004, bowed to mortality and looked to a future without the hallowed man, whose tribal name was Madiba: “When you go Madiba, your nobility shall be our lasting inheritance/ this land you so love shall continue to love/ we shall trail the long and majestic walk/ your gallant walk shall be our cross and shepherd.”
Concerts
One of the landmarks of the movement to free Mandela was a 1988 televised concert from London’s Wembley Stadium that celebrated his 70th birthday and featured such superstars as Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston and Sting. At the time, Mandela’s African National Congress was still regarded as a terrorist organization by many countries and had been condemned by Britain’s then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The BBC angered Mandela supporters by censoring political statements and angered the South African government by airing the concert at all.
A 1990 concert celebrating his release featured Tracy Chapman, Neil Young and Mandela himself, who received a long standing ovation. Shows in his honor continued over the decades, with Will Smith, U2’s Bono and Annie Lennox among those appearing.
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