Former Time editor remembers collaboration with Nelson Mandela
UPPER ST. CLAIR – Rolling out of bed at 4:30 a.m. for a long walk is something that, let’s face it, most of us would consider a chore.
When your companion for that pre-dawn stroll is Nelson Mandela, however, it’s a privilege.
For a time 30 years ago, Richard Stengel joined Mandela on many of those early morning walks. Stengel was collaborating with the South African leader on his memoir, “Long Walk to Freedom,” which was published in 1995, one year after Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president. In the course of pulling together “Long Walk to Freedom,” Stengel recorded more than 60 hours of interviews with Mandela, and some of those can now be heard in the podcast “Mandela: The Lost Tapes,” which was unveiled late last year.
Recalling Mandela during a talk at Upper St. Clair High School Tuesday morning as part of the Town Hall South speaker series, Stengel said Mandela projected an almost unnatural calm to the world, but “he had invisible wounds he didn’t show. He would never let anyone see it.”
Mandela had reason to harbor some resentment, considering he had been imprisoned from 1964 to 1990 for his opposition to South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime, which kept the minority white population at the levers of power, while Blacks and other minorities were subjected to segregation and repression. His release was a pivotal moment in the destruction of the apartheid regime and its replacement by a democracy. Mandela was thrown behind bars when he was 46 and liberated when he was 73, but “he couldn’t seem bitter when he came out,” Stengel said.
He added, “If he had not gone to prison, he never would have been the leader he became. … he learned self-control, he learned self-discipline, and focusing on what is essential and learning what is not.”
Mandela died in 2013 at 95. Stengel explained that, through “The Lost Tapes,” listeners can hear Mandela tell his own story, find out about the history of South Africa and learn about the writing of “Long Walk to Freedom.” They can also “hear all the distant noise. What was going on in that room and what he was like.”
Stengel said, “He’s still on the pedestal, but he’s a human being on a pedestal, not a statue.”
Aside from his work with Mandela, Stengel’s resume includes service in the Obama administration as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, and, before that, a seven-year tenure as editor of Time magazine. His other book credits include “Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It,” and he has taught journalism at Princeton University.
The 2022-23 season for Town Hall South is set to wrap up Tuesday, March 21, with an appearance by Alton Fitzgerald White, a Broadway actor and author. More information is available at townhallsouth.org.