From the Ruins of Robben Island

In 1964, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, a windswept rock off the coast of Cape Town. The anti-apartheid movement appeared finished. Its leaders were jailed or exiled, its organizations banned. South Africa's system of racial oppression seemed as permanent as the prison walls themselves. The tree of justice had been cut to a stump. But something grew in that barren place.…