A New Art & History Exhibit, Nelson Mandela: A Light So Powerful

is free and open to the public from January 25 through April 30, 2008

Strickland Building Lobby
Monday – Sunday,  9:00 am – 6:00 pm

Groups of 25 or more must register online by clicking here
Call the American Tobacco Management Office at 919-433-1566 with questions.

Nelson Mandela spent his life fighting for the freedom of his beloved country, South Africa. He was incarcerated on Robben Island for 17 years and regards his survival there as a triumph of the human spirit. Mandela remains a symbol of the struggle against the iniquities of apartheid and his name is a beacon of hope to oppressed people around the globe.

In May of 1994, Mandela became the president of South Africa after the first democratic elections in the nation’s history. The voting, held between April 26 and April 29, mobilized the country’s population and ended centuries of political oppression. (Text prepared by Dr. Karin Shapiro, History Department, Duke University.)

American Tobacco’s art and history exhibit, Nelson Mandela: A Light So Powerful, is a collection of art and memorabilia creatively displayed within “wire walls”, depicting both his incarceration and his triumph. The exhibit contains:

• A new installment from Mandela’s “My Robben Island” series of artwork. This series includes six limited edition lithographs all individually signed in pencil by Nelson Mandela. Images include The Window, The Lighthouse, The Harbour, The Cell, The Church and the moving Artist's Motivation, a hand-written piece by Mr. Mandela expressing his feelings about Robben Island and his reasons for the positive use of bright color in the series.
• Five 1994 election campaign posters, representative of those hung alongside streets and roadsides all over South Africa, making the electoral case for the African National Congress.
• An historic photo capturing Mandela casting his own vote in April 1994.
• A miner’s helmet from a protesting South African gold miner, painted to express his commitment to the ANC.
• Two historical frames for Mandela’s life – a brief biography and a timeline of the South African struggle against apartheid, racial segregation, and economic oppression.
• Educational materials that explain the "one person, one vote" election process.

Special thanks to Dollie B. Burwell and Dr. Karin Shapiro for generously allowing   South African artifacts from their personal collections to be included in this exhibit.

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