Nelson Mandela - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Nelson Mandela Index / People Transcripts Tawakkol Karman ...most important one was Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson [R.] Mandela , and Martin Luther King [Jr.]. And fo... ...as well as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela . I wanted to ask too, were you an... Jefferey DeLaurentis ...Raúl's hand at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela . Very important. Yeah, I ha... Ricardo Zúniga ...Raúl Castro's hand— Absolutely. —at Nelson Mandela 's funeral memorial. Also his trip t... ...even more important was that gesture at Nelson Mandela 's funeral, where President Obam... ...were these other events that happened— Mandela 's funeral and the meeting. But ther... Harold Hongju Koh ...life in the embassy? Do you think that Nelson Mandela spent his whole life in the US embassy... Ben Rhodes ...it got much worse later when we do the [Nelson] Mandela stuff. Yes. What about the loca... ...the unfinished business of the '90s. Mandela got out of prison. There are happ... ...of Obama and Raúl shaking hands at Nelson Mandela 's funeral. There's the trip to th... ...to get to the first one, I do think the Nelson Mandela memorial was important. Because tha... ...we go to South Africa for the Mandela memorial. On the plane, I had bee... ...even asking this question on the way to Nelson Mandela 's funeral. To him, I think, i... ...want to make sure we talk about is the Mandela memorial. I guess I'd just start b... ...become evident in moments like the Mandela memorial. And Obama hated it. The stor... ...to put himself in the company of, say, Nelson Mandela , because he just thought, “Nelso... ...Mandela, because he just thought, “ Nelson Mandela was a greater man than me. Nelso... ...Mandela was a greater man than me. Nelson Mandela made real sacrifices that I didn't hav... ...that I didn't have to make.” Yet when Mandela dies, of course, the world wants t... ...most US presidents wouldn't. If Mandela died when Trump was president, the... ...personal statement here about what Mandela meant to you.” I think he sa... ...Frankly, the difference between a Mandela and him is in that speech, too. Then... ...scanning the global headlines about the Mandela memorial that day, and it's all about... ...and it's all about, Barack Obama calls Mandela x, or Barack Obama said x—and the U... ...of his being in that continuum with Mandela was very powerful and continued afte... ...to South Africa for the centennial of Mandela 's birth and spoke at that. I thin... ...come. And then after this, there's the Mandela Fellows. I just wondered what you... ...that regard. So basically, using that Mandela memorial and some of the themes that h... Show more... Felice Gorordo ...exchange he had with Raúl Castro at Nelson Mandela 's funeral. You might remember tha... Judy Heumann ...tell the story in the book about the Mandela Washington fellow from America... ...new in the department. Every year, Mandela fellows come to the US. I had raised a... ...picture—is, once we knew there was a Mandela fellow, because we were—Mandela Fellow... ...was a Mandela fellow, because we were— Mandela Fellows program, they brought over fiv... ...2016, there were sixty-five identified Mandela fellows who came to the US. And the... ...the US. And they also, we learned, had Mandela fellows who didn't travel to the US bu... ...able to expand the program. Part of the Mandela program was, people spent a couple o... ...and then a selected group of those Mandela fellows went to NGOs for a month. Bu... ...a result of that, getting some of the Mandela fellows with disabilities to be able t... Show more... Huma Abedin ...team before, going to South Africa and Nelson Mandela 's chief of staff, Zelda La Grange, wh... ...the last time I saw—not her—we saw Nelson Mandela . Zelda said, “He only wants to se... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Science Science go to the LGBTQ Policy LGBTQ Policy go to the Immigration Immigration go to the Supreme Court Supreme Court go to the Wartime Presidency Wartime Presidency