BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa — When Freddy Kenny started his business selling vegetables out of a battered pickup truck in the 1970s, a siren used to sound over this city, his hometown, every night at 9, signaling to him and every other black person that they must leave the city limits immediately or face arrest.
These days, the only thing looming is a 20-foot statue of Nelson Mandela, the man who led South Africa out of apartheid and into an era of democracy, his fist raised in a black power salute. Mr. Kenny, now a supermarket magnate, donated the bronze likeness of Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, and had it erected atop the city’s highest point, Naval Hill.
“Madiba always watched over us when he lived,” he said Saturday, referring to Mr. Mandela by his clan name. “Now he will watch over us for eternity.”
Mr. Kenny’s new life, with the perks of privilege of his white counterparts, is a testament to the commitment Mr. Mandela, who died Thursday and whose funeral is next Sunday, placed on making racial reconciliation the centerpiece of his presidency.
He led a party that had fought an armed insurgency against the apartheid government, yet when he emerged from prison he preached forgiveness and harmony. Stripped of bitterness, Mr. Mandela negotiated a peaceful end to white rule, giving birth to the rainbow nation.
But racial equality at the ballot box has proved much easier to achieve than social and economic equality. While Mr. Kenny, a regular at the bar of the Schoeman Park Golf Club, a formerly all-white watering hole for the city’s elite, has caught up with and surpassed many white South Africans, he is an exception to a rule of lopsided opportunity and advancement that remains one of the most daunting challenges facing the nation today.
Since the end of apartheid, the government has built well over two million homes, brought electricity to millions of households and vastly increased the number of poor people with access to potable water. The average annual incomes of black-led households almost tripled from 2001 to 2011, according to census figures released late last year, and a growing percentage of the adult black population has gone to high school, with an increasing sliver going to college.
But black South Africans are still very far behind whites, and by some measures falling further back. In 2001, white-led households typically earned close to $17,000 more than their black counterparts, at current exchange rates. By 2011, that disparity had grown to nearly $30,000. And while the nation has made headway in reducing the number of black people with no education or only a few years of primary school, very few whites have that barrier to overcome; to the contrary, they have advanced to college and beyond at higher rates since apartheid ended.
The nation remains deeply divided in social spheres as well. According to the SA Reconciliation Barometer, a survey of racial and social attitudes, less than 40 percent of South Africans socialize with people of another race. Just 22 percent of white South Africans and a fifth of black South Africans live in racially integrated neighborhoods. Schools remain heavily segregated, too: Only 11 percent of white children go to integrated schools, and just 15 percent of black children do.
During his presidency, Mr. Mandela helped keep decades of oppression and imbalances from boiling over. He encouraged blacks to be patient about acquiring the material goods and services that even lower-class whites took for granted. He asked whites to have faith in multiracial democracy and not flee the country.
But through the long years of his declining health, many asked what would become of South Africa’s relative racial comity once he was gone.
Both through his words and his actions, Mr. Mandela gave South Africans “something to live up to,” Chanter Jacobs, 19, a white fashion student in Johannesburg, said before Mr. Mandela’s death. “He’s like a beacon, and you want to make him proud because he’s done a lot for our country.”
Without Mr. Mandela’s living example, Ms. Jacobs worried that South Africans would not try as hard to live up to his ideals. She feared relations between the races could worsen, leading the economy to decline, too.
These days, the only thing looming is a 20-foot statue of Nelson Mandela, the man who led South Africa out of apartheid and into an era of democracy, his fist raised in a black power salute. Mr. Kenny, now a supermarket magnate, donated the bronze likeness of Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, and had it erected atop the city’s highest point, Naval Hill.
“Madiba always watched over us when he lived,” he said Saturday, referring to Mr. Mandela by his clan name. “Now he will watch over us for eternity.”
Mr. Kenny’s new life, with the perks of privilege of his white counterparts, is a testament to the commitment Mr. Mandela, who died Thursday and whose funeral is next Sunday, placed on making racial reconciliation the centerpiece of his presidency.
He led a party that had fought an armed insurgency against the apartheid government, yet when he emerged from prison he preached forgiveness and harmony. Stripped of bitterness, Mr. Mandela negotiated a peaceful end to white rule, giving birth to the rainbow nation.
But racial equality at the ballot box has proved much easier to achieve than social and economic equality. While Mr. Kenny, a regular at the bar of the Schoeman Park Golf Club, a formerly all-white watering hole for the city’s elite, has caught up with and surpassed many white South Africans, he is an exception to a rule of lopsided opportunity and advancement that remains one of the most daunting challenges facing the nation today.
Since the end of apartheid, the government has built well over two million homes, brought electricity to millions of households and vastly increased the number of poor people with access to potable water. The average annual incomes of black-led households almost tripled from 2001 to 2011, according to census figures released late last year, and a growing percentage of the adult black population has gone to high school, with an increasing sliver going to college.
But black South Africans are still very far behind whites, and by some measures falling further back. In 2001, white-led households typically earned close to $17,000 more than their black counterparts, at current exchange rates. By 2011, that disparity had grown to nearly $30,000. And while the nation has made headway in reducing the number of black people with no education or only a few years of primary school, very few whites have that barrier to overcome; to the contrary, they have advanced to college and beyond at higher rates since apartheid ended.
The nation remains deeply divided in social spheres as well. According to the SA Reconciliation Barometer, a survey of racial and social attitudes, less than 40 percent of South Africans socialize with people of another race. Just 22 percent of white South Africans and a fifth of black South Africans live in racially integrated neighborhoods. Schools remain heavily segregated, too: Only 11 percent of white children go to integrated schools, and just 15 percent of black children do.
During his presidency, Mr. Mandela helped keep decades of oppression and imbalances from boiling over. He encouraged blacks to be patient about acquiring the material goods and services that even lower-class whites took for granted. He asked whites to have faith in multiracial democracy and not flee the country.
But through the long years of his declining health, many asked what would become of South Africa’s relative racial comity once he was gone.
Both through his words and his actions, Mr. Mandela gave South Africans “something to live up to,” Chanter Jacobs, 19, a white fashion student in Johannesburg, said before Mr. Mandela’s death. “He’s like a beacon, and you want to make him proud because he’s done a lot for our country.”
Without Mr. Mandela’s living example, Ms. Jacobs worried that South Africans would not try as hard to live up to his ideals. She feared relations between the races could worsen, leading the economy to decline, too.
