Rep. Johnson attends Nelson Mandela birthday celebration

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-04) released the following statement after joining members of Congressional Black Caucus and other congressional leaders to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday. The day also marks International Mandela Day, which celebrates 67 years of fighting for civil rights not only in South Africa, but across the world. Mandela has been hospitalized for five weeks recovering from a lung infection.

“Mary Frances Berry of the Free South Africa Movement was protesting in South Africa in 1990 when she received a phone call from a South African official telling her that she could stop the protests because Nelson Mandela would be released the next day. Ms. Berry thought to herself ‘non-violence seems to make the impossible, possible.’ As the non-violent struggle for equal rights, equal justice, and freedom and prosperity for all continues in America and around the globe, Madiba’s 95th birthday reminds us all that it is our strength and faith that makes the impossible, possible.”

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