Blacks and whites unified at the Union Building on the morning after Madiba’s death announcement.
I choked back tears as I sounded along with group, “Amandla! Awethu! Power! To the People!”
Here I was standing on the ground which Nelson Mandela stood 20 years prior and he gave his
inaugural speech as the president of a nation in the infancy of democracy. It was surreal. The
Union Building. Pretoria, South Africa. Site of Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech as president of South
Africa.
effervescence of honor accompanied my mind’s echo of the words from that famous speech; the
speech I had recited two months prior at our swear-in ceremony as official members of the
United States Peace Corps South Africa project:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our
United States Peace Corps South Africa swear-in ceremony, September 2013.
darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented,
fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve