Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio looked to the late Nelson Mandela for inspiration at a memorial service Sunday, urging New Yorkers to “live out the lessons” of the anti-apartheid hero.
“Take a moment to fully appreciate what Nelson Mandela meant to us. And we can’t do that enough, brothers and sisters,” de Blasio implored at a memorial service at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn.
He called on New Yorkers to “take in this lesson” from the life of Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95.
“If you believe in progressive values, if you believe in a more just world, if you the people will determine the fate of history — all you need to do is look to the history of Nelson Mandela,” said the mayor-elect. “It changed our lives, it changed our understanding.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) celebrated what he called the “moral majesty” of Mandela.
“When you lead by moral majesty, the walls come tumbling down,” he said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the sermon, hailed Mandela’s God-given “endurance” that transformed him into a great leader.
“Sometimes God has to isolate and hurt you so he can help you,” Sharpton told the congregation.
“You guys don’t remember, but when they put him in jail, there was no movement around the world to free Mandela,” he said. “It was against the law in South Africa for his name to even be recorded in a newspaper. Little did they know he would go from prisoner to president.”
De Blasio invoked the unyielding spirit of Mandela to fortify New Yorkers to face the city’s challenges.
“Our mission ahead in New York City is to not accept this inequality that has grown in the eyes of some so commonplace. It’s become conventional wisdom but it’s an unacceptable conventional wisdom,” he said. “Income inequality like this is unacceptable. Education inequality like this is unacceptable. Policing that is not respectful of all is not acceptable.”
He pointed to remarks Saturday by his new police commissioner, Bill Bratton, who said the NYPD should learn from Mandela.
“Today we memorialize, we celebrate. Tomorrow we start living out the lessons of Nelson Mandela,” said de Blasio. Meanwhile, cultural and political leaders across the county lauded Mandela.
“He never had a cross word to say to anyone. I was amazed … a gentle giant he was,” author and poet Maya Angelou said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Had there been no Mandela, we would have seen blood running in the streets,” she said. “He showed us how liberating it can be to forgive.”