On this day in New York · June 20, 1990
Nelson Mandela Rides the Canyon of Heroes
Four months out of a South African prison, Nelson Mandela stood in a bulletproof box on the back of a truck and let lower Broadway bury him in paper.
The facts
- Date
- June 20, 1990
- Route
- The Canyon of Heroes, lower Broadway from Battery Park to City Hall
- Led by
- Mayor David N. Dinkins, who presented Mandela the key to the city
- Crowds
- More than 1 million people over the three-day visit
On June 20, 1990, Nelson Mandela rode up the Canyon of Heroes on lower Broadway in a ticker-tape parade, the first stop of a three-day New York visit that was also his first trip to the United States. Mayor David N. Dinkins led the parade and greeted him at City Hall with the key to the city. Mandela had walked out of prison only a little more than four months earlier, after 27 years, and crowds that would total more than a million people over the three days packed the route from Battery Park to City Hall to see him. The parade was one stop on a swing that also took him to a Brooklyn high school, a Harlem rally, Riverside Church, and Yankee Stadium.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
We welcome you with open arms and full hearts, as a leader, as a brother, as a friend, as an ally, and as a magnificent example of commitment, conviction and courage
Mayor David N. Dinkins, welcoming Mandela to New York, June 1990
Source: NYC Department of Records & Information Services -
You now know who I am. I am a Yankee.
Nelson Mandela, at Yankee Stadium after Dinkins put a Yankees jacket and cap on him, June 21, 1990
Source: Andscape
Why it still matters
The city that had spent years boycotting apartheid South Africa got to hand its highest civic welcome to the man apartheid had tried hardest to erase, and it did it with the same ticker tape it saves for astronauts and champions.
Sources
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