Mandelas Lay Wreath at King Crypt : South Africa: The visit to Atlanta stirs a comparison of nations’ rights movements.

Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela paid tribute Wednesday to America’s own civil rights struggle as he took his crusade for racial equality into the once-segregated South.

Mandela and his wife, Winnie, who arrived in the Georgia capital shortly before noon, began by placing a large wreath of yellow chrysanthemums at the white marble crypt of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlanta-born preacher who championed a nonviolent campaign against racism until he was gunned down in 1968.

“Let freedom ring in South Africa,” Mandela, speaking at a late-night rally, said after quoting from King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. “Let freedom ring wherever the people’s human rights are trampled upon. Let freedom ring.”

Mandela said that he felt “a kinship and affinity with” King, whom he called a “giant among giants.”

Noting a dramatic increase in the number of black elected officials nationwide since the civil rights movement began, Mandela said that King’s dreams “are now becoming the stuff of reality.”

“His dreams are certainly going to see the light of day in our country as well,” Mandela declared.

“There is no city closer to the dream that Dr. King spoke of and that Mr. Mandela continues to fight for,” Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson said earlier. He greeted Mandela: “We welcome you home, home to the city of your brother in your struggle, Dr. Martin Luther King.”

After the wreath-laying ceremony, Mandela spoke to a lively overflow crowd at the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Atlanta’s oldest black church and a spiritual center for civil rights activists through the years. Then, he received honorary degrees from predominantly black American universities in a ceremony at Morehouse College, which produced King and a host of black political leaders.

Mandela’s visit to Atlanta, the fourth stop on a 12-day, eight-city U.S. tour, was clearly designed to link the anti-apartheid struggle with America’s historic fight for racial equality.

But the comparison between Mandela and King only goes so far. King chose to follow the principles of nonviolence in his fight for freedom; Mandela has refused to renounce the role of armed struggle in his crusade--a position he quickly reaffirmed here.

“Nonviolence is a good policy--when conditions permit,” Mandela told reporters following a red-carpet welcoming ceremony at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. “There are also times when conditions do not permit.”

Thousands of people, black and white, lined Atlanta’s “Sweet” Auburn Avenue and waited for hours in steamy, sweltering heat hoping to see Mandela. His motorcade, escorted by dozens of police on motorcycles, arrived more than two hours late at the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change, where King is buried.

“I saw him! I saw him!” cried Tina Scott, 38, an attorney from the Atlanta suburb of Decatur who brought three of her children to Auburn Avenue to see a man considered a hero in many circles. “You hear about him, you read about him, but this is the first time we can see his wisdom. It’s history.”

After the Mandelas placed a wreath at King’s tomb, which sits on a platform in a glistening pool of water, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and other disciples of the American civil rights movement clasped hands and sang “We Shall Overcome.” The Mandelas stood solemnly, gazing at the inscription on the monument: “Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty I’m Free at Last.”

The song ended with a shout of “Amandla,” a Zulu word meaning “Power” that has become a slogan for Mandela’s African National Congress. Both Mandelas raised a clenched fist, though Nelson Mandela quickly switched to his characteristic open-handed wave.

“It is a great honor and pleasure to be where Martin Luther King Jr., was born and brought up,” Mandela said earlier. “This is our first stop in the Southern United States. The weather, the landscape, the warmth of the people, evoke a memory for us of home.”

But, he added: “Unlike you, we are still under the grip of white supremacy.

“When we landed here one of the issues that struck us was the fact that we are in a home of liberty, equality and fraternity--at least in law, if not in practice.”

Mandela left Atlanta late Wednesday for Miami, a city that was expected to provide the most controversy so far in his tour. Citing Mandela’s support for Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Miami officials have refused to honor the black South African, and Cuban-born activists are calling for massive protests when Mandela addresses a labor convention today.

Mandela’s visit to Atlanta focused attention on the question of violence as a tool for social change, with several Southern civil rights leaders standing firm in advocating King’s policy of nonviolence.

“Without violence, we were able to turn the South into a New South,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told reporters. Lewis had marched alongside King and suffered numerous beatings and arrests during civil rights protests in the ‘60s.

Coming to Atlanta may “give him (Mandela) the will to try, as much as possible, to avert violence,” Lewis added.

William Boone, chairman of the political science department at Clark Atlanta University, one of the schools honoring Mandela on Wednesday, pointed to differences in the contexts in which King and Mandela waged their fights. Tactics that worked in 1960s America may not work in South Africa, where the system of racial segregation appears so entrenched, Boone said in an interview.

“The American system and tradition were able to accommodate the kind of nonviolent struggle” that brought change, Boone said, “but I don’t think the South Africans would facilitate that kind of struggle.”

Among his admirers, Mandela’s defense of armed revolution is perfectly justified.

“How much can you push a guy,” Americus Reed, an Atlanta service station owner, asked a reporter. “Sooner or later, he’s going to fight back. Or he should fight back.”

Theodore Scott, 38, a teacher at Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Middle School who waited in a crowd to see Mandela, said violence is not the issue.

“He (Mandela) doesn’t stand for violence or nonviolence,” Scott said. “He stands for justice. The bottom line is both King and Mandela stood for justice and equality.”

Mandela ended his day in Atlanta with a sold-out rally at the 46,000-seat Bobby Todd Stadium at Georgia Tech’s Grant Field and a fund-raising reception.

Police reported six people were arrested for parading without a permit near the stadium. Some of the arrested were following civil rights activist Hosea Williams, an aide to King during civil rights marches, who had said he would lead a group of poor people to the rally site to protest a $5 charge for seats.

Throughout the Atlanta visit of approximately 12 hours, Mandela’s schedule was changed repeatedly, with appearances eliminated, then added again and with all events falling hours behind schedule. Organizers said the 71-year-old Mandela needed more rest, and another snafu apparently arose when Winnie Mandela stayed too long at a $100-a-plate luncheon in her honor.

The confusion may have contributed to keeping the crowds smaller than those he saw in New York and Boston. But much of the same admiration that he received elsewhere was repeated here.

“I’m still in shock,” awe-struck Stefanie Watts, 23, a Los Angeles resident who attends Clark, said after seeing Mandela arrive for a nap at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Peachtree Street. “I feel fortunate to have a chance to even see him. I never got a chance to see Dr. King, so this is my chance to see a man who means so much.”

Six-year-old Kourtney High and her 3-year-old sister, Kristin, were visiting from Rocky Mount, N.C. Kourtney’s eyes lit up when asked about Mandela. “He’s from Africa. He was in jail. He’s in America to preach about freedom for the black people in South Africa.”

Robin Craft, 36, had just finished his shift as a bus driver and was waiting on Auburn Avenue to see Mandela’s motorcade.

“He can alert the country to problems all over the world, not just South Africa,” Craft said. “It’ll bring more awareness to everyone, not just blacks, about freedom, equality and opportunity.”

Al-Hakim Allah, minding a souvenir stand loaded with Mandela T-shirts, incense and photographs, sounded a similar note. “Whatever he has to say about freedom is just as precious as water,” he said.

In Miami, a very different reception awaited Mandela.

There, the ANC deputy president could expect no red carpet, no key to the city and, instead, a contingent of police on full alert and angry demonstrations.

His statements in support of Castro, as well as Yasser Arafat and Moammar Kadafi, unleashed a week of bitter wrangling among various ethnic groups in Miami over how to receive Mandela.

Times researcher Edith M. Stanley in Atlanta and free-lance writer Mike Clary in Miami contributed to this story.

L.A. IS NEXT STOP--The schedule for Mandela’s visit to area appears on B2.