Mayor Dinkins and Nelson Mandela Story

Mayor Dinkins: "I am proud that we were able to get Madiba [Nelson Mandela] here in 1990. He stayed at Gracie Mansion. I love to tell the story, how I was concerned that the bed on which he was going to sleep might not be sufficiently long because he is a tall man. But it was sufficiently long. It wasn’t until two years later, in 1992, at the Democratic National Convention, I took Al Gore and Bill Clinton to meet him. He had come back from South Africa. A lot of photographs were taken. In some of them, you can see Clinton is maybe a shade taller [than Mandela], and then I realized: the problem was, Mandela, to me, was a giant. It was like he was 10 feet tall. That’s why I was worried [about the size of the bed]. Oh, what a man! After more than 27 years in prison, not a trace of bitterness. Absolutely amazing. …He’s one of my heroes, for sure.”