South Africans Honor Memory of Mandela

Updated Dec. 8, 2013 1:39 p.m. ET

A boy walks past a mural depicting Nelson Mandela during different stages of his history, outside the Regina Mundi church in Soweto, Johannesburg, on Sunday. Associated Press

QUNU, South Africa—South Africans filled houses of worship on Sunday to remember their first black leader, Nelson Mandela, whose death last week sparked an outpouring of grief, remembrance and preparations for his hometown funeral and a memorial at a soccer stadium.
Mr. Mandela, who died Thursday evening at his Johannesburg home at 95 years old, enjoyed near mythical status in the racially divided country, and President Jacob Zuma had designated Sunday as a day of prayer and reflection on his life.
South African officials fanned out to different churches and synagogues in what amounted to a campaign to use the spirit of the late statesman to bridge the nation’s lingering societal divides.

A portrait of Nelson Mandela during the lighting of the flame ceremony in memory of Mr. Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu Saturday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

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“We should not forget the values that Madiba stood for and sacrificed his life for,” President Zuma told those gathered at a church in Johannesburg, using Mr. Mandela’s clan name. “He actively participated to remove the oppressor to liberate the people of this country. When our struggle came to an end, he preached and practiced reconciliation to make those who had been fighting to forgive one another and become one nation.”

Girls participate in a church memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Soweto on Sunday. President Obama was expected to visit South Africa to pay his respects to the late leader this week. Reuters

Meanwhile, in a Methodist church overlooking Mr. Mandela’s rural home of Qunu, community members gathered in song and prayer. “We are here to give Madiba a peaceful journey,” said churchgoer Sabelo Ngqeleni. “We will always remember his spirit.”

Remembering Mandela

Mourners in Cape Town. AFP/Getty Images

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The Long Goodbye
Dec. 8: President Jacob Zuma declares a day of prayer to remember the antiapartheid icon.
Dec. 10: Main official memorial service to be held at Soweto soccer stadium.
Dec. 11-13: Mr. Mandela will lie in state in Pretoria at the main government buildings.
Dec. 15: Mr. Mandela will be buried in his ancestral home of Qunu, Eastern Cape.
Source: South Africa government

Nelson Mandela, South African leader and apartheid foe, died Thursday at 95. Here are a selection of speeches he gave after his release from prison in 1990, and while as president in 1994.

The 50-year-old said it was because of Mr. Mandela’s urging for all South Africans to go to school that he left a job as a gold miner to get a better education and get a job at an agricultural affairs agency.
The prayers marked the beginning of a weeklong mourning period ahead of the funeral for Mr. Mandela, who came to power in 1994, after 27 years in prison.
More than two dozen heads of state have confirmed their attendance at a memorial set for Tuesday at a 90,000-seat soccer stadium in Johannesburg, the presidency said Sunday. It added that some of them may also attend Mr. Mandela’s burial Sunday in his home village of Qunu, in South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape province.
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will be coming to South Africa, along with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the presidency said. In addition, 26 U.S. lawmakers are expected to attend Mr. Mandela’s funeral proceedings.
In Qunu, Mr. Mandela will be buried in a stone plot surrounded by aloe plants overlooking the salmon pink home he built after his release from prison.
In between Tuesday’s memorial and Sunday’s burial in Qunu, people will be invited to view Mr. Mandela’s body lying in the capital Pretoria. For three days, his remains will be transported back and forth between a military hospital to a complex there called the Union Buildings, with South Africans expected to line the route to pay their respects.
Others outside South Africa have also begun to memorialize a liberation hero who became a global symbol of equal rights for oppressed people. South Africa’s government said that Kashmir, the contested territory between India and Pakistan, declared five days mourning; Iran named a street after Mr. Mandela.
For many in his hometown, the memories of Mr. Mandela were more personal. In his memoirs, Mr. Mandela says some of his fondest memories were of the time he spent playing in streams and stick fighting in Qunu. Today, the stream has dried up and the village struggles with unemployment but Mr. Mandela is still seen as the man who brought freedom.
Outside Mr. Mandela’s former home, a group of young men sat staring across the road. One said: “It’s too early to talk.”
Other residents recall times Mr. Mandela would walk through Qunu, stopping to speak to them.
In 1995, not long after Mr. Mandela was elected president, Benjamin Xala said he was home at Christmas when he saw Mr. Mandela strolling past his house.
“I had no words so he said, ‘aren’t you going to come greet me?” Mr. Xala said, standing in his yard with a view of Mr. Mandela’s house. “We took pictures and the whole family met him.”
The village chief of Qunu, Nokwanele Balizulu, said once she couldn’t pay her child’s school fees and Mr. Mandela helped.
With Mr. Mandela’s passing, some in the village are concerned they lost a benefactor. In recent years, Mr. Mandela’s ruling African National Congress has confronted so-called service delivery protests in predominantly black townships and villages among those fed-up with power outages, poor roads and a dearth of decent housing.
“I’m worried about this current government but we must release Mandela because he has worked hard for us,” said 71-year-old Beatrice Mathsqi, attending another prayer service in Mqhekezweni, where Mr. Mandela lived after Qunu.
Residents of Qunu are now preparing themselves for the influx of visitors in the coming days and years. Authorities are expanding a lone two-lane highway leading into the town. Hotels in the closest city with lodging and an airport, called Mthatha, have doubled prices this week. Qunu’s resident are renting out their home for hundreds of dollars a night.Police have closed a two-mile stretch of road in front of Mr. Mandela’s house, diverting traffic from it. Four military trucks were parked in front of the house while event trucks come and go ahead of the Dec. 15 burial. Cranes behind the home were busy erecting scaffolding for a tent.
The day before his burial, the government said the family will have a private gathering and hold a traditional Xhosa ceremony, in honor of Mr. Mandela’s ethnic group. Mr. Mandela embraced his Xhosa heritage, but he also showed deep loyalty for the ANC, the liberation party that brought together people of all ethnic groups.
“I asked him once what will happen when he goes,” said Ms. Balizulu, the village chief of Qunu. “He said he will look for an ANC office in heaven.”
—Patrick McGroarty and Peter Wonacott in Johannesburg contributed to this article.
Write to Devon Maylie at devon.maylie@wsj.com

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