WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday stood alone in the cramped Robben Island prison cell in South Africa that once held Nelson Mandela, gazing out at the blue sky through a barred window.
Obama, who says his political career was inspired by Mandela’s nonviolent fight against apartheid, again drew inspiration by touring the penal island with First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Obama had visited before, but it was a new experience for the rest of his family.
“Nelson Mandela showed us that one man’s courage can move the world,” Obama said later in a speech at the University of Cape Town.
“There was something different about bringing my children. Malia’s now 15, Sasha is 12, and seeing them stand within the walls that once surrounded Nelson Mandela,” he said, “I knew this was an experience that they would never forget.”
The tour was led by Ahmed Kathrada, a former inmate and anti-apartheid activist imprisoned with Mandela.
Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years captive in the grim confines of cell 7B, where Obama entered alone and briefly reflected.
Mandela, 94, has been hospitalized in critical condition for three weeks with a lung infection.
The Obamas also toured the prison’s limestone quarry where Mandela ounce toiled breaking stones. At that point of the tour, Obama offered a brief history lesson to his daughters.
“One thing you guys might not be aware of is that the idea of political nonviolence first took root here in South Africa because Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer here in South Africa,” he told them.
“Here is where he did his first political [activism]. When he went back to India, the principles ultimately led to Indian independence, and what Gandhi did inspired Martin Luther King.”
At the university, Obama called on young people to fight injustice and “build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”