Mayor Adams drew a parallel between the global fight against COVID-19 and Nelson Mandela’s decades-long struggle for freedom in a speech Monday commemorating what would’ve been the late South African leader’s 104th birthday.
Speaking at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan for the international body’s annual “Mandela Day” ceremony, Adams said the African icon proved throughout his life that a commitment to “freedom” can lead humanity out of “dark times.”
“The ongoing crisis of COVID, war and crime have imprisoned us in our own Robben Island prisons. But these are temporary conditions. They are not life sentences,” Adams said, referring to the notorious lockup in South Africa where Mandela was incarcerated for 18 years.
Adams, who’s only the second Black mayor in New York City history, said his own life story is marked with strife.
He told the United Nations General Assembly that he grew up in poverty with a single mother, battled undiagnosed dyslexia in school and spent time in jail as a teenager.
“But I knew it was not the end, not a burial. And today I stand before you energized for all that I have endured on my journey, too,” he said before adding: “That Mandela-like energy will allow us to turn our pain into purpose.”
Others in attendance at the UN’s annual Mandela celebration included Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.
This year’s commemoration comes as New York is battling a new surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations — a trend that has prompted some public health experts to call on Adams to reinstate vaccine and mask mandates in the city. So far, Adams has held off on reimplementing any such public health precautions.
The UN held its first Mandela Day in 2010, three years before the South African leader died at 95.
After 27 years behind bars on claims that he had attempted to overthrow South Africa’s racist apartheid government, Mandela was freed in 1990 amid intense domestic and international pressure.
Four years later, Mandela was elected South Africa’s first Black president and served in that position until 1999. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Mandela is often referred to the “Father of the Nation” in South Africa.
