Chicago Minister and Civil Rights Leader reflects on meeting Nelson Mandela

“I was awed by his presence”

By Juanita Bratcher

Rev. Dr. Al Sampson had the pleasure of being in the presence of Nelson Mandela three times, and each time he was awed by his presence.

Sampson, a Civil Rights Leader, President of www.georgewashingtoncarverfarms.com, and former Pastor of Fernwood United Methodist Church in Chicago for more than 30 years, was ordained by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1966 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a world traveler and visited Africa several times.

After the Million Man March on Washington Oct. 16, 1995, where more than a million was in attendance, Sampson was selected by Minister Louis Farrakhan as the only Christian minister in a 30-member delegation traveling to 18 African countries to participate in the “Atonement Reconciliation Responsibility Peace Tour”.

Sampson first met Mandela when traveling with the Black Publishers Association to Africa several years ago. “While there, I had a chance to meet Nelson Mandela; I was awed by his presence. I met him again while with Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskegee, Alabama who gave birth to the World’s Conference of Mayors, and the third time with Minister Louis Farrakhan, after the Million Man March.

“I was always awed by his presence because many of us had participated in the ANC (Africa National Congress) movement. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Methodist Church had a ‘Free South Africa’ flag in front of his church.

“We took busloads from our church when he was on tour in Atlanta, Ga. I saw him and wife; they were brought to Chicago by Minister Farrakhan and she met with us and we talked with her.”

Sampson and several anti-apartheid civil rights leaders and activists in Chicago, including Professor Bob Starks, picketed the South African Consulate.

“So there has been a large history of Africans in America making this international connection and the role that Mandela made in going from prisoner to president.

“Every time I’ve been in Nelson Mandela’s presence I never had the need to ask him anything because our lives were so intertwined. I am a student of North Carolina sit-ins in Raleigh and in Mississippi. I know the horrors of being in jail although I didn’t stay in for 27 years” like Mandela.

“I have a first-hand reality check about prisons,” said Sampson. “I know the beast reality of prison (arrests during sit-in demonstrations). The genius of Mandela was to use his mind and transform the circumstances.”

In the early days of education in America, some sociologists said man was a product of their environment. Sampson said Victor Frankl and other psychiatrists, however, said you can transcend and rise above your environment.

“But we have learned as a people, as African Americans in America, to transcend our environment. His (Mandela) ability to have a movement outside the prison walls, and to then come out on a Sunday morning from a prisoner in one room to become the president in another room. What does this mean? It is a crowning achievement, as Dr. King said about the content of character.”

Sampson noted that U.S. Congressman Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus helped get Mandela’s name off the terrorist list.

Sampson was in South Africa this year with Ben Asiel. They met with Winnie Mandela whom he greatly admires.

“History will say that this woman (Winnie) was prepared to die for her man (Nelson Mandela) in the liberation struggle,” Sampson noted. “And I hope that she receives a prominent role, not only in the funeral, but as they write the history books that this woman was prepared to die for the liberation of people for her man.

“I’ve always appreciated her because in the history of our movement (in America) we had Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks; it was the parallel of people being oppressed from different parts of the world and that Africans in America are marvelous people for all we’ve been through.”

Some History Notes about Rev. Al Sampson, among many others:

Sampson and James Fox were the first students arrested in the Raleigh, NC sit-in demonstrations. He was then President of Shaw NAACP as well as President of the NAACP’s state youth and college chapters. Ezell Blair Jr. was also arrested in Greensboro, NC.

In 1975 he became the Assumed Pastorate of Fernwood United Methodist Church Chicago Southern District of Northern Illinois Conference.

He was selected by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to serve on the Woodlawn Organization’s (T.W.O.), Chicago, IL staff as an organizer to study the techniques of Saul Alienky.

Was community organization consultant for poverty programs in Syracuse, NY, Wilmington, DE, Indianapolis, IN, and Boston, MA

Fellow, Metropolitan Applied Research Center, founded by Dr. Kenneth Clark.

Former SCLC Project Director in the largest major voter registration drive in Cleveland OH, which elected Carl Stokes the first Black Mayor in an urban city.

With the aid of a team of lawyers they helped to expunge “Brothers and Sisters’ records” through a program called Operation Clean Slate. There is now legislation called the “Expungement Act”, House Bill 2033.

Graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C, a Bible based school, during the turbulent ‘60s.

Worked with and Ordained by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

President of www.georgewashingtoncarverfarms.com.

Sampson can be reached at www.revalsampson.org.

Juanita Bratcher is an Award-Winning Journalist, Author, Editor & Publisher of CopyLine Magazine.