My personal debt to Mandela

By Soumanou Salifou

In the African culture in which I was born, raised and nurtured, the death of a person, regardless of his/her age, is always a sad occurrence. Like millions, probably billions of people across the world, the passing of South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, has touched me very deeply, despite his old age, 95. It goes without saying that Mandela is a legend in a thousand ways: a champion of freedom, democracy, humility, forgiveness, human rights, racial equality, and the personification of the power of hope. I also happen to be among the countless people who owe this towering figure a very personal gratitude, as a result of one of those coincidences of life.

In the evening of Saturday, October 6, 1994, as a 46-year-old reporter who had retired, just the previous year, from a well-paying job at the Voice of America in Washington to embark on the risky road of starting a magazine committed to ending the negative portrayal of Africa in the American media, I happened to reap a huge benefit from a ceremony held in the nation’s capital in honor of President Mandela.

Early that morning, the first issue of The African, my brain-child, was delivered to my house in Springfield, Virginia. It had on its glossy, sparkling cover the picture of then-president of Benin, Nicephore Soglo, wearing a breathtakingly gorgeous African suit, with the main headline: “Crusade against Afro-pessimism.” I had no idea President Soglo was arriving in Washington that day until the Benin State Protocol Director, a relative, called me in mid-morning to inform me that he and his boss were in town. Probably less than an hour later, I was at the president’s hotel with a box of the magazine.

I was humbled by the warm reception the president and his entourage gave the magazine, which he was asked to autograph by illustrious visitors that included Kwesi Mfume, then leader of the Congressional Black Caucus. Little did I know that President Soglo was scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at the Annual Bishop John T. Walker Memorial Dinner scheduled for that evening in honor of President Mandela who was to receive the award of the same name. After a quick run back home to pick up several boxes of magazine, I had no time to change before heading to the Sheraton hotel, the venue of the award dinner, as part of President Soglo’s press corps. Did I capitalize on the unexpected golden opportunity. With help from members of President Soglo’s press corps, I handed out hundreds of copies of the magazine to the guests. To see Colin Powell, Jesse Jackson, Doug Wilder, Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, high-level U.S. and African government officials, renowned doctors, lawyers and scores of celebrities of both races glancing through the little magazine founded by little, obscure me was worth the millions of dollars that I have yet to make in this business.

This publisher’s jackpot would not have been possible had Mandela not been invited to receive that award the evening of that historical day for me when the magazine came out, coinciding with President Soglo’s arrival in Washington.

And to hear then-vice president Al Gore praise Mandela’s courage and tenacity, and for me to stand such a short distance from Mandela – in the good, old pre-911 era – was an invaluable experience that I didn’t know then would help me tremendously later in life.

Thank you, papa Mandela.