When Maradonna Met Mandela

In 1997, Cal Maradonna received an invitation from South Africa that was too good to pass up.

He had spent two years building a Rutgers University–Camden Learning Abroad program and establishing relationships with universities in South Africa and Namibia. The invitation came from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, which was hosting a ceremony honoring Nelson Mandela, the revered leader who had led the struggle to replace South Africa’s system of apartheid with a democracy. They wanted a Rutgers representative to attend.

Maradonna, who had earned an undergraduate business degree from Rutgers–Camden in 1974 and a master’s in business in 1979, was dean of students at the time. Instead of the black commencement cap and gown befitting his degrees that he could have worn to the Mandela ceremony, he received permission to borrow one of the distinctive scarlet robes traditionally worn by Rutgers presidents and provosts. “I said, ‘I’m going to look good at this ceremony.’”

Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, had been released in 1990. In 1994, the year apartheid ended, Mandela won the South African presidency in the nation’s first free elections and began a five-year term. As a young man in 1939, he had enrolled at the University of Fort Hare, but the school expelled him in his third year for organizing a student boycott. Now, almost 60 years later, it was honoring him.

Dressed in the Rutgers regalia, Maradonna lined up in a back room, behind a gymnasium where the ceremony was to take place and waited for the processional to begin. “I’m there. I’ve got my red robe on. Somebody taps me on the shoulder. I turn around. It’s Nelson Mandela.

“He says, ‘I’m Nelson Mandela.’ I said, ‘Yes sir. I know.’ He wanted to know what university I was from. He loved my robe. We had a three-minute conversation. It was amazing.”

Maradonna wasn’t able to get a photo—this was before the era of smartphones, and he didn’t have a camera with him or a photographer near. There also were limitations on photos of Mandela at the event. “He didn’t want flash pictures, because his eyes were bad from breaking up limestone rocks in a quarry while he was in prison,” Maradonna said. “I said to myself, ‘I have to chalk this up as an incredible experience.’ It was a fascinating day.”

The meeting with Mandela, who died in 2013 at the age of 95, was not Maradonna’s only interaction with an African president in 1997. That same year, Maradonna recruited Sam Nujoma, president of the Republic of Namibia, to speak at Rutgers–Camden’s College of Arts and Sciences commencement. Maradonna had connected with Nujoma in efforts to support a bookstore at the University of Namibia in 1995.

Nujoma, the first president of Namibia after it achieved independence from South Africa in 1990, was a contemporary of Mandela in the fight against apartheid. In his 1997 address, Nujoma credited Rutgers with helping to establish a national Namibian university, closing his address to cheers: “Long live Rutgers University! Long live the University of Namibia! Long live the spirit of international cooperation!”

Twenty-five years later, Maradonna reflected fondly on his encounters with the two African presidents. “It is something I’ll never forget,” he said.