Mandela Gets Star’s Welcome

With crowds of admirers chanting his name on the steps of City Hall and at a packed Coliseum, anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela came to Los Angeles Friday on the last leg of a taxing eight-city U.S. tour and asked the city to continue its “staunch” support in the fight to end white minority-led rule in South Africa.

Mandela, looking weary but speaking firmly, told thousands of people who crowded the lawns of City Hall at a midday ceremony that America’s “unsung heroes” have helped to build a “powerful, broad-based” movement that is approaching victory in the struggle against South Africa’s policies of racial segregation.

Mandela was hailed by movie stars and Mayor Tom Bradley, who called him a “kindred spirit” of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

“In our youth, Hollywood was the stuff of dreams,” Mandela said on the steps of City Hall, with actor Gregory Peck presiding over the event. “In a sense, our youthful dreams, to some extent, are being realized.”

But, he added, “We are particularly overjoyed to be in this city because Los Angeles is a staunch supporter of the anti-apartheid movement.”

In fact, Los Angeles is seen as key to tour organizers’ goal of raising millions of dollars to underwrite social and political work by Mandela’s African National Congress.

Already, $1.2 million has been raised by a reception Friday evening at the Exposition Park Armory, and 70,000 $10 tickets for a rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were sold--making it a sellout crowd, organizers said.

The crowd assembled for Mandela’s midday address at City Hall was considerably smaller than the throng of well-wishers that organizers had hoped for.

Los Angeles County Fire Department officials estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 people gathered at City Hall; the police, who first estimated crowd size at 3,000, later revised the figure to about 15,000.

“How it got from 2,500 at 12:30 to 15,000 (two hours later), I can’t explain,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Fred Nixon said.

Whichever the figure, it fell far short of the 30,000 that organizers were predicting. When the Dodgers won the World Series in 1988, an estimated 70,000 people crowded City Hall.

City officials and program organizers said they were not overly concerned about the turnout.

On the political front, the Los Angeles City Council, seizing on Mandela’s visit, voted to close loopholes in a city measure that will keep the city from doing business with companies that have ties to South Africa.

Mandela, who turns 72 next month, said his 12-day odyssey through the United States, where he has addressed huge crowds in Harlem, laid a wreath at King’s grave and met with President Bush, has been “exhausting but exhilarating.”

“Wherever we went, we were met with the milk of human kindness,” he said.

“We believe that the finest tribute we can pay to your wonderful, warm, generous and compassionate people is to intensify the anti-apartheid struggle on all fronts,” Mandela added.

Mandela arrived midday Friday, about two hours late, aboard a chartered Trump Shuttle which landed at a remote Tarmac of the Los Angeles International Airport. He then sped to City Hall in a motorcade as his security entourage closed the east-bound lanes of the Santa Monica freeway.

Reaching City Hall, Mandela met briefly with Bradley in private, then emerged to see the crowd.

Throughout the morning, rumors circulated that concern over Mandela’s stamina would force organizers to pare back the tour.

Organizers of the tour considered canceling his last stop, Oakland, but decided to go ahead with it, a source on the welcoming committee said.

However, his schedule in Los Angeles is being curtailed. According to the committee source, Mandela’s doctor had insisted he skip the City Hall event, while organizers insisted he appear. In addition to his age and unrelenting schedule, Mandela recently underwent surgery for the removal of a benign cyst from his bladder.

Compromise was reached when it was agreed that Mandela would omit a scheduled speech before the City Council but would appear before the waiting crowd, which began gathering early Friday.

As Mandela moved across a platform outside City Hall, the audience chanted “Nelson” and “Amandla”--the Zulu word for “power”--but then grew impatient as local politicians took their turns to speak--finally booing Bradley and City Council President John Ferrero as each took a turn at the microphone.

In addition to Peck, the star-studded roster of dignitaries included Sidney Poitier, Dionne Warwick, Robert Guillaume and Muhammad Ali.

Also on stage were assorted politicians, including Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and former Gov. Jerry Brown, several council members and Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony.

But despite the impressive list of luminaries, there was no mistaking the star of the show.

“Nothing’s going to stop me from getting a snapshot of him--not even the FBI,” vowed Ann Marie Dumas, 21, of Glendale, clutching a disposable camera on the steps of City Hall. “I’m gonna blow it up, put it in a frame and hang it in my living room--right next to my world map and picture of Martin Luther King Jr.”

On 1st Street in front of the stage, standing atop a bus shelter, six young men and a small boy unfurled a blue banner that said, “Greetings Mandela From the Homeless.”

When Mandela’s motorcade finally arrived at City Hall, Eric Narcho hobbled toward Spring Street as fast as his broken leg and crutches would allow. Trailing close behind was his 4-year-old son, Rocco.

“Ready, Rocco? There he is! See him!” yelled Narcho, 25, a carpenter from Echo Park. “Do you have chills? Your dad does!”

Hermine Johnigan, a 64-year-old retired schoolteacher from Los Angeles, had the privilege of shaking Mandela’s hand on the Spring Street steps of City Hall. She was one of about 50 members off Los Angelenas, a volunteer organization of women who work with the city protocol office. Wearing yellow dresses, the women lined the red carpet that Mandela followed up the steps to City Hall.

“It made me feel very humble. It made me feel very good that I am living in this century to witness the changes in relations between blacks and whites,” said Johnigan, who is black.

Johnigan said she firmly grasped Mandela’s hand. “I took both of his hands and said, ‘We’ve been waiting a long time, God bless you.’ And he said, ‘Thank you.’ ”

“I’m not going to wash this hand for a week,” she said.

Hearing Johnigan speak of her fortuitous handshake, David Woo, a 23-year-old artist from Los Angeles asked: “Did I hear you say you shook his hand? Can I shake your hand?”

“Of course you can, young man,” she answered.

The crowd that heard Mandela at City Hall had to deal with rigidly zealous security guards, blocked-off streets, a poor acoustical system and intense sunshine--factors that may have kept people away.

Darlene Donloe, a spokeswoman for the local Mandela Reception Committee, said she was “not at all” disappointed in the crowd size--one of the smallest public gatherings of the U.S. tour.

Some organizers said Mandela’s late arrival--after the lunch hour had concluded--and rampant rumors he might not go to City Hall until late in the afternoon may have contributed to the turnout.

Security surrounding Mandela’s arrival was tight. Police and State Department security agents roped off City Hall, inspected the area with bomb-sniffing dogs and required anyone entering the building to go through a metal detector.

Security was so rigid, in fact, that when actor Paul Winfield, a diabetic, asked to leave the City Council chambers to take his insulin, a State Department agent told him that if he left, he wouldn’t be allowed back in. A council aide, who asked not to be identified, said he got back in anyway.

Among the City Hall crowd was a 500-voice interdenominational choir organized by the 1st African Methodist Episcopal church. Across the street were eight demonstrators waving flags with the ANC colors--black, gold and green--on one side and the Palestinian flag on the other side, with the slogan: “Palestine and South Africa: two people, one struggle.”

Mandela, who has angered some Jewish groups with his stated support for Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, was scheduled to meet Friday evening with Natan Sharansky, jailed eight years in the Soviet Union. The visit was arranged by the Anti-Defamation League.

Just hours before Mandela’s arrival, the City Council voted to toughen the city’s anti-apartheid sanctions law by banning nearly all city contracts with firms that do business with South Africa.

Council members went to work early to deal with the sanctions measure, and, in a unanimous vote, sent a proposal to the city attorney’s office with instructions to prepare a ballot measure that may go to voters in November.

The measure would delete a City Charter requirement that contracts for $25,000 or more be offered to the lowest competitive bidder--even if the company does business in or with South Africa.

“This city has always stood for individual freedom and human rights,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores. “I think this is a gift--it’s better than a key to the city--that we can give to Mr. Mandela to take back with him to the people of South Africa.”

Mandela came to Los Angeles from Detroit, where he spoke to about 50,000 people at Tiger Stadium Thursday night. At dawn Friday morning, he took a stroll wearing a cap and jacket from the NBA champion Detroit Pistons basketball team and shook hands with admiring early-morning commuters.

Asked in Detroit about his health, Mandela said he felt fine, flashing two thumbs-up signs.

“If you want to test this, just bring some boxing gloves,” he told reporters.

Times staff writers Darrell Dawsey, Jane Fritsch, Scott Kraft, Louis Sahagun, Faye Fiore and Hector Tobar contributed to this report.

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