State President F.W. de Klerk was still delivering his opening-day speech before Parliament when an antiapartheid leader interrupted a protest rally four blocks away to deliver "a very important message." Some 3,000 demonstrators, massed in searing sunshine across from the Cape Town city hall, fell silent as she announced, "The A.N.C. has been unbanned." The gathering seemed stunned at the news that the African National Congress, the leading force in the fight against apartheid, outlawed and in exile since 1960, would once again be a legal participant in the nation's politics. Then someone shouted, "Amandla!" (power), the battle cry of the...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
