Black sheep are different. They are wild, they breeze through restrictions just because…it’s their nature. They stand strong for their beliefs and they keep going towards their goal regardless. You might break them in bones, but not in spirit. But are they always bad? Who says “black-sheeping” is bad anyway?

What does it take to be different? To have a voice that leads the cowardly whimpers of thousands? To stretch out one’s neck for a dare and own up to one’s actions?

It’s guts. Lots of guts. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela had it in trailer loads and for this, he is celebrated till today. However, it’ll be a stupid thing to do not having a deep knowledge of what you are doing while having the famed guts. On the fall of 1964, April, when he made his speech from the dock, he said,

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

This isn’t just any conviction of his actions, it is a conviction based on deep-rooted knowledge, marinated in the hot sauce of his experiences and baked in the heat of his dreams for his country. If this foundation of his wasn’t as strong, he would have been a blubbering mess at the Rivonia Trial. He would have bent in Robben Island rather than bend the authority to his will.

 

You know another way Rivonia Trial could have been famous? Right. He could have turned and kissed the government’s ass to save himself from being convicted. But we all know he didn’t. And that is one wild conviction (in all meanings of the word) that we recognize.

On this day, we rise to the memory of the man who was different, declared himself a rebel and gave the finger to the minority government he fought.

To Madiba, uBawomkhulu… #OneWildSoul