Obama visits Mandela prison

Gallery: Obama visits Mandela prison

US President Barack Obama visited Robben Island to pay tribute to ailing anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and set the stage for a speech urging Africans to strive for prosperity and democracy.

U.S. President Barack Obama tours the cell block on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held captive. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama tours Robben Island with first lady Michelle Obama, near Cape Town, June 30, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama writes in a guest book as he tours Robben Island with First lady Michelle Obama. REUTERS/Jason Reed

A hand-written note by U.S. President Barack Obama is pictured in a guest book as he tours Robben Island with First lady Michelle Obama. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) walks with his family, as they visit the rock quarry labor camp where Nelson Mandela was forced to work, while they tour Robben Island. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama is pictured with his family, as he visits the rock quarry labor camp where Nelson Mandela was forced to work. Pictured with the first family is their guide Ahmed Kathrada (2nd R). REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama is pictured with his family, as he visits the rock quarry labor camp where Nelson Mandela was forced to work, while they tour Robben Island. Pictured with the first family is their guide Ahmed Kathrada (3rd R). REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama and First lady Michelle Obama tour the cell block on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held captive. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama writes in a guest book as he tours Robben Island with first lady Michelle Obama. Under apartheid, Nelson Mandela spent several decades as a political prisoner on Robben Island. REUTERS/Jason Reed

U.S. President Barack Obama stands in the Robben Island prison cell, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 out of his 27 years of imprisonment. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

U.S. President Barack Obama, right, and first lady Michelle Obama tour Robben Island. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

U.S. President Back Obama U.S. looks around Section B, prison cell No. 5, on Robben Island. This was Former South African president Nelson Mandela's cell, where he spent 18-years of his 27-year prison term on the island locked up by the former apartheid government. (AP P ...

U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and his family listen to Robben Island prison guide Ahmed Kathrada (L), who was an inmate with Nelson Mandela, at the prison. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

U.S. President Back Obama U.S. peers out from Section B, prison cell No. 5, on Robben Island. This was former South African president Nelson Mandela's cell, where spent 18 years of his 27-year prison term on the island locked up by the former apartheid government. (AP Ph ...

U.S. President Barack Obama stands in the Robben Island prison cell that former president Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

 Cape Town - US President Barack Obama will follow in the footsteps of Robert Kennedy Sunday to deliver a speech at the Cape Town university where the slain America icon laid down a stark challenge to opponents of apartheid.

On a June day in 1966, Kennedy, though shunned by South Africa's white government, appeared before students to decry the “racial inequality of apartheid”.

That would have been provocative enough, but he also implored them to rise up and challenge the moral bankruptcy of their leaders, to be the change they wished to see.

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped,” Kennedy said, employing the unmistakable long vowels of his Boston accent and the trademark staccato delivery he shared with his brothers.

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” said the senator, then a US presidential candidate.

“And crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

His words were a direct assault on the brutal divisions that cut across South Africa's schools, buses, beaches and suburbs.

An assault on the humiliating identification passes that the black majority were forced to carry in their own land.

And it could not have come at a more sensitive time.

It was just a few years after Nelson Mandela was first sent to Robben Island, which lies a short distance across the shimmering waters of Table Bay.

The impact of the speech was electrifying.

A local liberal newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, hailed Kennedy's visit as the “best thing” to happen to South Africa in years.

“It is as if a window has been flung open and a gust of fresh air has swept into a room in which the atmosphere had become stale and foetid. Suddenly it is possible to breathe again without feeling choked,” the paper said.

The Washington Post noted the South African government's “glacial snub”.

“In the eye of the government in Pretoria, the visit is as welcome as a mild plague,” the paper wrote.
An “ominous silence” followed his departure with everyone “waiting for the government's backlash”, the London Observer News Service said.

One deputy minister however did take vocal umbrage, according to press clippings on the website for the 2009 film “RFK In the Land of Apartheid”.

“This little snip thinks he can tell us what to do,” he thundered.

“He has only been in the country for three days and already he has the audacity to tell us what the remedy to our problems would be.”

But still Kennedy's comments rippled across history, although it was almost three decades before apartheid ended.

Exactly two years after his speech he would die after being shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen by a Palestinian gunman.

By his graveside in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington is a quotation from what become known as his “ripple of hope” speech.

Because Kennedy also spoke soberly of America's own challenges, the venue is likely to carry extra symbolism for America's first black president. - Sapa-AFP