In the year of 1918 a Black baby boy was born and he was destined to become a great man.
I am not generally a hero worshipper, but there have been a few in my life, and Mandela is number two, second only to my father Milton Kendrick Sr. Nelson Mandela proved to be an exceptional person who epitomized what I characterize regularly as caring, concerned, committed, calculating, calm, capable, charismatic and courageous.
I will remember as long as I live when Mandela stood before the sentencing judge who said to him, “If you will simply state to this court that you will not resort to any means necessary to free your people, you are free to go home.” The court offered Mandela an opportunity to lie by stating he would never resort to violence, but the great man stood tall and endured 27 years in confinement.
I could continue about Mandela’s career after he was finally released from jail, but most of us are familiar with his great accomplishments. However I would rather focus on the headline of this column “Mandela will live forever.” The problems encountered by Mandela are not solely confined to South Africa, look around you.
The time is long overdue for us, you and I who reside in the city of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County to remove our heads out of that proverbial sand and come to grips with the established facts that we are confronted daily with some very serious problems that clearly emulate the problems in South Africa.
Poverty locally and in South Africa is an overwhelming contributing factor that destroys Black families.
The unemployment throughout Allegheny County in the Black communities is staggering, the negative results are single parents homes, rises in the crime rate and incarceration percentages, compounds the difficulties of the educators and others.
I absolutely do not place all of the blame on the backs of deceptive politicians because the Black voters too frequently have permitted themselves to be lulled to sleep by alleged Black leaders who place their self-interest before the people’s interest.
As long as the problems exist that continue to deny Blacks truly first class citizenship anywhere, Nelson Mandela will live forever.
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(Louis “Hop” Kendrick is a weekly contributor to the Forum Page.)
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