I was born in 1963.

Nelson Mandela was in jail.

I graduated from high school in 1980.

Nelson Mandela was in jail.

I graduated from college in 1987.

Nelson Mandela was in jail.

I got married in 1989.

Nelson Mandela was in jail.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Nelson Mandela

I grew up in a family where the struggle for Civil Rights was conversation at the dinner table. I knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. My father spoke passionately about Mohandas K. Gandhi, his personal hero, who had come to the town where my father was born to convince the English factory workers that it would not harm them to allow the Indian people their freedom.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. Nelson Mandela

I do not remember the first time I heard the name "Mandela." But he haunted my thoughts in high school and college. I read his ex-wife, Winnie's biography, Part of My Soul Went With Him. I marched in front of the South African consulate in Seattle. There was so much to feel helpless about when I was in college. Ronald Reagan was the president, and I thought that I could not bear those eight years. That the world had gone mad, and the death squads in Central America, South African apartheid, the destruction of the social safety net, the threat to women's rights, the dismantling of education, all of it, would be too much to bear.

And still, Nelson Mandela sat in jail. I tried to imagine his life. My mind could not go there. I thought that such a life would make me insane, that I could never hold up under the conditions that he experienced.

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. Nelson Mandela

In the past 30 years, I have felt my passion ebb and flow, my belief that things will change alter with time and tide. There have been times of such utter rage and sorrow that I have been rendered helpless. And there have been times when I have been able to keep myself focused by doing the "next right thing."

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.Nelson Mandela

How, I wonder, did Nelson Mandela maintain his sanity in those years? I have not been able to maintain my focus and I have been given relative freedom. No one has locked me away in a jail cell, separated from my loved ones, alone save for my thoughts.

On February 11, 1990, Mandela was released from jail. I remember the day clearly. I remember standing in my living room in my apartment in Seattle and hearing the news. I remember that the first thing I did was that I wept. And then I played Peter Gabriel's "Biko" and wept some more.

Finally, I put on Tracy Chapman's song, "Freedom Now" and I played it over and over again. As I listened, my tears began to dry. My feet began to move. And I danced. I danced because it felt, at that moment, like a small bit of sanity had been returned to the world. A tiny flicker of hope rattled in my chest like a hummingbird.

I have not felt that flicker for a while now. And I wait, how I wait, for the thrum within me that tells me that all will be well.

FREEDOM NOW

Tracy Chapman

They throwed him in jail

And they kept him there

Hoping soon he'd die

That his body and spirit would waste away

And soon after that his mind

But every day is born a fool

One who thinks that he can rule

One who says tomorrow's mine

One who wakes one day to find

The prison doors open the shackles broken

And chaos in the street

Everybody sing we're free free free free

Everybody sing we're free free free free

Everybody sing we're free free free free

They throwed him in jail

And they kept him there

Hoping his memory'd die

That the people forget how he once led

And fought for justice in their lives

But every day is born a man

Who hates what he can't understand

Who thinks the answer is to kill

Who thinks his actions are god's will

And he thinks he's free free free free

Yes he thinks he's free free free free

He thinks he's free free free free

Soon must come the day

When the righteous have their way

Unjustly tried are free

And people live in peace I say

Give the man release

Go on and set your conscience free

Right the wrongs you made

Even a fool can have his day

Let us all be free free free free

Let us all be free free free free

Let us all be free free free free

Free our bodies free our minds

Free our hearts

Freedom for everyone

And freedom now

Freedom now

Freedom now

Freedom now

Let us all be free free free free

Let us all be free free free free

Let us all be free free free free

Happy Birthday, Nelson Mandela!