JOHANNESBURG: The speaker, one of the world’s most recognizable black leaders, was addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress when he quoted America’s top civil rights leader: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last,” Nelson Mandela said to a standing ovation, quoting words delivered in a speech whose 50th anniversary comes next week

Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. never met but they fought for the same cause at the same time on two continents. Mandela said he was prepared to die to see his dream of a society where blacks and whites were equal become reality. King was assassinated in 1968 while working for that same dream.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison during white racist rule in South Africa. Released in 1990, he went on to become president and shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with the white South African president, F.W. de Klerk. King won his Nobel Peace Prize nearly 30 years earlier.

Mandela traveled to the United States after he was released and he spoke at Yankee Stadium, telling the crowd that an unbreakable umbilical cord connected black South Africans and black Americans. There was a kinship between the two, Mandela wrote in his autobiography, inspired by such great Americans as W.E.B. Du Bois and King.

King, for his part, was unable to visit South Africa. In 1966 he applied for a visa after accepting invitations to speak to university students and to religious groups but the apartheid government refused to give him one. In December 1965, King delivered a speech in New York in which he denounced the white rulers of South Africa as “spectacular savages and brutes” and called on the U.S. and Europe to boycott the nation, a tactic the West eventually embraced and that helped end white rule.

“In South Africa today, all opposition to white supremacy is condemned as communism, and in its name, due process is destroyed,” King said. “A medieval segregation is organized with 20th century efficiency and drive. A sophisticated form of slavery is imposed by a minority upon a majority which is kept in grinding poverty. The dignity of human personality is defiled; and world opinion is arrogantly defied.”

King and Mandela were inspirational symbols for huge freedom struggles happening in both countries, said Clay Carson, a Stanford professor and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

“I think both of them were moral leaders. Both were people who had very strong principles, stuck to those principles even in the face of criticisms, and in Mandela’s case being in prison for such a long time,” said Carson.

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, attended Mandela’s 1994 inauguration as South Africa’s first black president. She was on the podium as Mandela gave his speech at a celebration. “I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband’s immortal words … ‘Free at last! Free at last!'” Mandela wrote in his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom.”

Mandela again quoted from the “I Have a Dream” speech — “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last” — during his 1994 address to the U.S. Congress. Mandela, 95, has been hospitalized since June, much of that time in critical condition.

PRETORIA: Millions of people around the world marked Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday Thursday, heartened by news that the hospitalised icon was now able to smile and nod to visitors.

After six weeks of intensive hospital treatment, Ndileka Mandela told AFP her grandfather was “steadily improving” and “using his eyes, nodding.”

That message was echoed by President Jacob Zuma who visited his predecessor’s Pretoria bedside “found him really stable and I was able to say ‘happy birthday’ and he was able to smile.”

That is a dramatic turnaround for the ailing peace icon, who just weeks ago was thought to be close to death.

Mandela was rushed to hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection that had already put him in hospital three times in less than a year.

Outside the Pretoria facility which has been the focal point of a national vigil for the last 41 days, there were joyous scenes.

Revellers sang anti-apartheid struggle songs, school children read poems dedicated to a man nearing the end of his long walk that took him from political prisoner to South Africa’s first black president.

“Tata (father) Mandela has once again proved that he is a fighter,” said well-wisher Agnes Shilowane, a local university student.

Thursday’s news was a relief elsewhere in the country to South Africans who marked Mandela Day with a panoply of good deeds.

Biker gangs cleaned streets, volunteers painted schools and politicians spent 67 minutes on worthy projects — all to mark Mandela’s 67 years of public service.

Near Pretoria, Zuma tried to channel Mandela’s cross-community appeal by delivering government housing to poor whites.

Messages of support also poured in from around the world — and even from astronauts on the International Space Station — to mark the anniversary, which many feared Mandela would not live to see.

US President Barack Obama — who was unable to visit Mandela during a trip to South Africa last month — led tributes to the peace icon, calling on people to honour him through volunteer work.

“Our family was deeply moved by our visit to Madiba’s former cell on Robben Island during our recent trip,” Obama said in a statement.

“We will forever draw strength and inspiration from his extraordinary example of moral courage, kindness, and humility.”

Other well-wishers included the Dalai Lama, former US president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, US actor Morgan Freeman and Mandela’s former jailer FW de Klerk, who went on to share the Nobel Peace Prize with him.

“Mandela’s place in South Africa’s history is assured,” former president De Klerk said in a statement.

“His legacy of courage, perseverance and magnanimity will continue to inspire us — and people throughout the world — for generations to come.”

— ‘Oxtail and dumplings’ —

The Mandela family also did their bit, with his grandchildren volunteering at a children’s home.

They were then expected to gather at the hospital for lunch, along with Mandela’s third wife Graca Machel, who also celebrates 15 years of marriage to her husband today.

“We’re doing our 67 minutes and bringing our old clothes that we’re not using anymore. Then we’ll converge at the hospital to have lunch with granddad,” said Mandela’s granddaughter Ndileka said.

She said the birthday meal would include Mandela’s favourite food, including “oxtail, prawns, dumplings and vegetables”.

Another granddaughter, Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway, distributed food at a school.

“I think it’s important for us to give back,” she said.

“We are a family, we hope for him to come home, and we know the whole nation would hope the same thing, and the whole world.”

The United Nations declared the Nobel Peace laureate’s birthday Mandela Day in 2010, but for many this year it takes on extra poignancy.

In central Lisbon the Don Pedro IV Square was to be renamed Nelson Mandela Square, and an open-air Mandela-themed opera concert was planned in Paris.

On Saturday, the Australian city of Melbourne will hold a concert featuring local and African artists.

Born on July 18, 1918, Mandela fought against white rule in South Africa as a young lawyer and was convicted of treason in 1964.

He spent the next 27 years in jail.

It was in part through his willingness to forgive his white jailers that Mandela made his indelible mark on history.

After negotiating an end to apartheid, he became South Africa’s first black president, drawing a line under centuries of colonial and racist suppression.

He then led reconciliation in the deeply divided country.

But the sunset of Mandela’s life has been somewhat eclipsed by bitter infighting among his relatives.

A row over his final resting place has seen three of his children’s graves dug up and their remains moved amid public brawling and legal action among his children and grandchildren.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nelson Mandela has made “dramatic progress,” and may be going home “anytime soon,” said his daughter Zindzi on the eve of his 95th birthday.

“I visited him yesterday and he was watching television with headphones,” said Zindzi Mandela in an interview with Britain’s Sky TV. “He gave us a huge smile and raised his hand … He responds with his eyes and his hands.” Mandela is gaining “energy and strength,” said his daughter.

“I should think he will be going home anytime soon.” The latest description by Zindzi — who is one of Mandela’s daughters by his second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela — is a significant improvement from court documents filed by the family earlier this month which said he was on life support and near death. Mandela has been in a Pretoria hospital since June 8 and officials say his condition is critical but stable.

The news of the improvement in Mandela’s health will boost his supporters in South Africa and around the world who are preparing to celebrate his 95th birthday on Thursday, a day declared by the United Nations as a way to recognize the Nobel Prize winner’s contribution to reconciliation.

Interest in Nelson Mandela International Day has ignited as a result of the former South African president’s hospitalization in Pretoria and people find ways to honor his ideals.

A Johannesburg-based foundation named after Mandela and numerous other groups have asked people to volunteer 67 minutes to charity to match what they say are the 67 years that Mandela served his community. Mandela led South Africa through a tense transition from apartheid to democracy and became president in the country’s first all-race elections in 1994.

President Jacob Zuma will mark the birthday by overseeing the donation of houses to poor white families in the Pretoria area, in line with his Cabinet’s theme to commemorate Mandela’s birthday this year by focusing on food security, shelter and literacy.

In Cape Town, labor activists are holding an event at St. George’s Cathedral on Thursday, in remembrance of Mandela’s years of service and to encourage people to donate food to charity while leaving messages of support for the former leader’s family.

Mandela, who is in critical but stable condition, has been hospitalized since June 8, and hundreds of well-wishers have left prayers and messages of hope at his Johannesburg home and at the hospital where he is being treated. Legal documents have said Mandela’s breathing is machine-assisted.

The anti-apartheid leader has also inspired artists and graphic designers who celebrate his life through paintings and posters.

A group of young South African designers created a poster project to offer a global perspective of Mandela with submissions from around the world. The group whittled down 700 posters submitted by designers from more than 70 countries, to 95 for each day of Mandela’s life.

The posters will be unveiled Wednesday and a single special edition auctioned off to raise money for a proposed children’s hospital that will be named after Mandela, the group said.

“He carries across this concept of humanity and selflessness,” said Mohammed Jogie, co-founder of the project.

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is responding to treatment but remains in a critical but stable condition after more than a month in hospital, the office of President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.

“We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment and urge the public to continue providing support and showering him with love, which gives him and the family strength,” Zuma himself said after visiting Mandela, often referred to affectionately by his clan name Madiba, in a Pretoria hospital.

Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, has been receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection that has led to four hospital stays in the past six months.

A presidency statement said Zuma “found Mandela still critical but stable, and was informed by doctors that he was responding to treatment”.

The faltering health of South Africa’s first black president, a figure admired globally as a symbol of struggle against injustice and racism, has reinforced a realisation that the father of post-apartheid South Africa will not be around for ever.

His eldest daughter Makaziwe said in a court document filed late in June that her father was in a “perilous” condition and breathing with the aid of life-support machines.

U.S. President Barack Obama wrapped up his visit to South Africa on Sunday with a visit to the prison cell where anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was held and a call to students to help build a new Africa.

Speaking at the University of Cape Town, Obama recounted how American college campaigns against investment in apartheid-era South Africa inspired him to get involved in a public cause for the first time. The school was the site of a famous speech by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the height of apartheid in 1966, and Obama said the leadership of figures like Kennedy, the now-ailing Mandela and Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi — who began his career as a lawyer in South Africa — “stand as a challenge to your generation.”

“They tell you that your voice matters,” he said. “Your ideals, your willingness to act on those ideas, your choices can make a difference. And if there’s any country in the world that shows the power of human beings to effect change, this is the one.”

Obama spoke after touring Robben Island, where Mandela was held during most of his 27 years in prison for fighting South Africa’s now-dismantled system of white minority rule and racial segregation. The president spent a few minutes in the cell where Mandela slept during that stretch, quietly contemplating the concrete walls and the mat that served as a bed.

Veteran anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who had been imprisoned with Mandela on the island, was the first family’s guide during the visit.

Obama had visited the island prison once before, in 2006. Sunday’s visit was the first for the family members who accompanied him — first lady Michelle Obama; the couple’s daughters, Sasha and Malia; Mrs. Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson; and a cousin, Leslie Robinson.

“For me to be able to bring my daughters there and teach them the history of that place and this country … that’s a great privilege and a great honor,” Obama told the students.

The 94-year-old Mandela has been in a Pretoria hospital for more than three weeks and has been in critical condition since June 23. He was hospitalized for a lung infection that has plagued him since his days on Robben Island.

Obama met some of Mandela’s relatives Saturday and spoke by telephone with the anti-apartheid icon’s wife, who maintains a vigil by his bedside.

The president’s decision not to visit the hospital was out of respect for the family’s wishes, according to the White House.

“I expressed my hope that Madiba draws peace and comfort from the time that he is spending with loved ones, and also expressed my heartfelt support for the entire family as they work through this difficult time,” Obama said, referring to Mandela by his clan name.

A meeting between the U.S. president and Mandela would have had historic significance. Like Obama, Mandela broke through racial barriers to become the first black president of his country. The two met when Obama was a senator.

Mandela became an international figure for his fight against apartheid. He was elected to the nation’s highest office in 1994, four years after his release from prison, and remains popular worldwide as an icon of peaceful reconciliation.

Obama’s visit to Africa’s biggest economy is part of a three-nation trip that started in Senegal and will end in Tanzania this week.

It aims to bolster U.S. investment opportunities, address development issues such as food security and health, and promote democracy. It comes as China aggressively engages the continent, pouring billions of dollars into it and replacing the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner.

During the trip, Obama pledged $7 billion to help combat frequent power blackouts in sub-Saharan Africa.

His visit also included a town hall with young people in Soweto, a Johannesburg neighborhood at the heart of the anti-apartheid struggle. He also held bilateral talks with Zuma in Pretoria, with trade high on the agenda.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE:  U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute to anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela as he flew to South Africa on Friday but played down expectations of a meeting with the ailing black leader during an Africa tour promoting democracy and food security.

White House officials hope Obama’s three-nation tour of Africa – his first substantial visit to the continent since taking office in 2009 – will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by America’s first black president.

The health of Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, dominated Obama’s day even before he arrived in Johannesburg.

“I don’t need a photo op,” Obama told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving Senegal. “The last thing I want to do is to be in any way obtrusive at a time when the family is concerned with Nelson Mandela’s condition.”

Mandela’s ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, said his condition had improved in the past few days.

Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists and South African Communist Party members marched through the capital to the U.S. Embassy, where they burned an American flag and called Obama’s foreign policy “arrogant and oppressive.

Muslim activists held prayers in a car park outside the embassy. Leader Imam Sayeed Mohammed told the group: “We hope that Mandela feels better and that Obama can learn from him.”

MANDELA A “PERSONAL HERO”

Obama sees Mandela, also known as Madiba, as a hero. Whether they are able to meet or not, officials said his trip would serve largely as a tribute to the anti-apartheid leader.

Like Mandela, Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize and both men were the first black presidents of their nations.

Air Force One departed Senegal’s coastal capital, Dakar, just before 1100 GMT (0700 ET) and was due to arrive in South Africa around eight hours later. On Friday evening, Obama has no public events scheduled and could go to the hospital then.

“When we get there, we’ll gauge the situation,” Obama told reporters.

Obama was scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mandela spent years in prison under South Africa’s former white minority regime.

He told reporters his message in South Africa would draw from the lessons of Mandela’s life.

“If we focus on what Africa as a continent can do together and what these countries can do when they’re unified, as opposed to when they’re divided by tribe or race or religion, then Africa’s rise will continue,” Obama said.

White House officials said Obama would hold a “town hall” on Saturday with youth leaders in Soweto, the Johannesburg township known for 1976 student protests against apartheid.

He will discuss a new exchange program for African students with U.S. colleges and universities. The event will include youth in Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya participating through video conference, and will be televised in those countries, White House officials said.

Flying on board Air Force One from Senegal, Obama paid tribute to Mandela who as South Africa’s first black president led the nation out of apartheid, but said he was not seeking a “photo op” with the ailing statesman.

Mandela, 94, has been in the Pretoria heart clinic with a lung infection for nearly three weeks, his fourth spell in hospital in six months.

A Nobel Peace Prize laureate like Obama, Mandela is admired around the world as a symbol of resistance against injustice and of racial reconciliation. His condition improved over Wednesday night but he remained critical.

Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, Muslim activists and South African Communist Party members marched through the capital to the U.S. Embassy where they burned a U.S. flag in protest, calling Obama’s foreign policy “arrogant and oppressive”.

Muslim activists held prayers in a car park outside the embassy. Leader Imam Sayeed Mohammed told the group: “We hope that Mandela feels better and that Obama can learn from him.”

South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to fulfill a pledge to close the U.S. military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.

Protesters said the first African-American president should not try to link himself to the anti-apartheid figure.

“Mandela valued human life … Mandela would condemn drone attacks and civilian deaths, Mandela cannot be his hero, he cannot be on that list,” said Yousha Tayob.

“TWO GREAT MEN”

A few blocks away at the Pretoria heart hospital, well-wishers paying tribute to Mandela had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.

Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.

“These are the two great men of my lifetime,” he said.

“To me, Mandela is a prophet who brought peace and opportunity. He made it possible for a black man like me to live in a country that was only for whites.”

During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, the former penal colony where Mandela passed 18 years of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.

White House officials have said they will defer to the Mandela family on whether a visit to the hospital would be appropriate.

Obama, who has been in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.

South Africans held prayer vigils outside the Pretoria hospital and at Mandela’s former Soweto home Thursday night.

But as his health has deteriorated this year, there is a growing realisation among South Africa’s 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial “Rainbow Nation” from the ashes of apartheid may be nearing his end.

The possibility of his dying has already generated controversy among the extended Mandela clan.

A dispute between factions of the family over the anti-apartheid leader’s proposed final resting place in the Eastern Cape went legal on Friday when his eldest daughter and a dozen other relatives won a court order against his grandson, Mandla.

SABC, South Africa’s state broadcaster, said the court had ordered Mandla to return the remains of three of Mandela’s children from Mvezo, where Mandla is now chief, to Qunu, Mandela’s ancestral home 20 km (13 miles) away.

JOHANNESBURG: Former South African president Nelson Mandela ‘s condition deteriorated to “critical” on Sunday, the government said, two weeks after the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader was admitted to hospital with a lung infection.

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa’s 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

“The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable,” it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as “serious but stable” although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent’s biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public’s last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was “in good shape” although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

“Obviously we are very worried,” ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. “We are praying for him, his family and the doctors.”

“ABSOLUTELY AN ICON”

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” and one of the 20th century’s most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was “time to let him go”.

“He’s absolutely an icon and if he’s gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I’m sure we’ve all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go,” said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

“He’s done his best,” he added. “We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done.”

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world’s most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

JOHANNESBURG: For the fifth straight day, former South African President Nelson was in a Pretoria hospital on Wednesday, being treated for a recurring lung infection.

The 94-year-old icon was hospitalized on Saturday. Two of Mandela’s daughters and his former wife visited the hospital where Mandela is staying on Tuesday. President Jacob Zuma called Mandela’s situation “very serious” but said he has stabilized.

Mandela, the leader of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, spent 27 years in prison during white racist rule. He was freed in 1990, and then embarked on peacemaking efforts during the tense transition that saw the demise of the apartheid system and his own election asSouth Africa’s first black president in 1994.

His admission to a hospital in Pretoria, the capital, is Mandela’s fourth time being admitted to a hospital for treatment since December.

JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela was back in hospital on Saturday in a “serious but stable” condition suffering from a recurrent lung infection, the latest health scare for South Africa´s frail anti-apartheid icon.

Mandela, who turns 95 next month, was admitted to hospital in the capital Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday, his fourth hospital stay in seven months .

“During the past few days former president Nelson Mandela has had a recurrence of lung infection,” President Jacob Zuma´s office said in a statement.

“This morning at about 1:30 am (2330 GMT Friday) his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition.”

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has long had problems with his lungs, had been released from hospital in April following a 10-day stay for treatment for pneumonia.

In December 2012, he was hospitalised for 18 days for a lung infection and for gallstones surgery, his longest stay since he walked free from 27 years in jail in 1990. In March he was admitted for a day for a scheduled check-up.

Zuma´s office said on Saturday that “the former president is receiving expert medical care and doctors are doing everything possible to make him better and comfortable.”

“President Jacob Zuma, on behalf of government and the nation, wishes Madiba a speedy recovery and requests the media and the public to respect the privacy of Madiba and his family,” it added, using Mandela´s clan name.

Beloved as South Africa´s first black democratically elected president, Mandela is still a powerful symbol of unity for the once-bitterly divided nation almost 20 years after first taking power.

But he has not been seen in public since the World Cup final in July 2010 when he appeared on the pitch before kick-off.

In March, Zuma appeared to prepare the nation for the passing of the father of the “Rainbow Nation”.

“In Zulu, when someone passes away who is very old, people say he or she has gone home. I think those are some of the things we should be thinking about,” Zuma told the BBC.

Following his April hospital stay, the release of television footage showing a frail and distant Mandela being visited at home by leaders of the ruling ANC sparked outrage and accusations that the party was exploiting Mandela.

The images aired by state broadcaster SABC — the first public footage of the Nobel peace laureate in almost nine months — showed an unsmiling, distant Mandela seated upright on a couch, his legs covered in a blanket.