Image via WikipediaNelson Roulihlahla Mandela is celebrating his 93rd birthday today, marking still another milestone in a life that few, perhaps not even Mandela himself, could have imagined.
The boy who, like all other boys in his rural South African village of Qunu, herded sheep and kicked around a soccer ball in the rolling hills, may have dared to dream, but in those early years of the 20th century, no young black South African like himself, even one of royal lineage, would have dreamed the dream of his journey from prisoner to president of his country and icon of the world.
And yet, the dream of freedom propelled Mandela into the practice of law and into the streets aboveground and underground and finally into the docks, challenging an unjust system that took away 27 years of his life but not his dream of freedom.
Throughout his years in prison, Mandela never wavered in his determination to free his people from their oppressive existence or compromised in his demands. CONTINUE....
