Lord Provost Bob Innes hands over the Freedom Scroll to Nelson Mandela in the City Chambers. This photograph appeared in the November 1993 issue of Glasgow City Council's newspaper The Bulletin.
Nelson Mandela was originally awarded the Freedom of the City of Glasgow in 1981, but was refused permission to travel to accept the award by the apartheid regime in South Africa which had imprisoned him. Mandella, the leader of the African National Congress, was eventually released in 1990 and became his country's first democratically-elected president in 1994.
In his speech of acceptance, Mandela said of Glasgow: "It will always enjoy a distinguished place in the records of the international campaign against apartheid. While we were physically denied our freedom in the country of our birth, a city, 6,000 miles away, and as renowned as Glasgow, refused to accept the legitimacy of the apartheid system, and declared us to be free."
Reference: Bulletin photographs, Box 11, November 1993
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
African National Congress, Africans, ANC, anti-apartheid movement, apartheid, awards, black men, Bulletin, Freedom of the City, freemen, Glasgow City Chambers, lord provosts, political prisoners, presidents, scrolls, South Africans
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