Nelson Mandela receives a hero’s welcome in New York

On 20 June 1990 Nelson Mandela was greeted the way New York welcomes its heroes – with mounds of security and miles of tickertape. According to reports, the security for Mandela included 12 000 city police officers, 4 super-insulated bomb trucks, 16 teams of demolition experts, helicopters, boats, a 90-horse mounted unit and 6 200 sawhorse barricades. Mandela, who was deputy president of the African National Congress (ANC) at the time, was received at the City Hall after a traditional parade up Lower Broadway. At the steps of the City Hall Mandela paid tribute to New Yorkers: "You, the wonderful citizens of New York, have demonstrated in the most visible manner that we, the oppressed people of South Africa and the ANC, are admired and respected (and) that it is the dying apartheid system that is totally isolated....” Mandela’s tour of eight American cities, the first of which was New York, comprised of taping television programmes, attending fund-raisers and appearing at rallies in Harlem and the Yankee Stadium.