“An authoritarian police state in an apartheid South Africa. was a ‘powerful proximity’ assault on my senses. The deep divides, English and Afrikaans, Black and White, Zulu and Xhosa, homeland chiefs and the politically dominant African National Congress (Mandela’s party), signaled unshakable loyalties. Meeting Mandela, and then being professionally tasked to place his own Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) CEO., created a heightened awareness on an inside track. I listened, learned, and began to understand the fear, the anger, the loyalties, the perceived risks and losses. Fractional factions amidst all South Africans. I arrived in a dynamic Boston at Harvard University the week of President Trump’s inauguration. It is like stepping back into a time warp, back in an ‘apartheid South Africa’.’ All of this deepened my core belief that Mandela is an empirical case for HOPE today for America, and our chaotic world. Voted the ‘Leader of Leaders of the 20th Century’ by ordinary citizens,, Mandela is Africa’s Gift to Humanity, to give our world a more human face.”

– Anne Pratt