(Tuesday, May 10, 1994, 12:17 p.m. South African Standard Time) — With the commanding dignity that has carried him through more than half a century of defiance, captivity and conciliation, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, jailed for 27 years for his anti-apartheid activism, became the first black President of South Africa today in Pretoria.
He stood before a crowd of world leaders who shunned this capital during its decades of infamy, and in a husky, resolute voice swore the oath to become the 10th leader of South Africa since its union in 1910, but the first elected with the participation of the black majority.
Then the 75-year-old leader opened his presidency with an intimate speech of shared patriotism, speaking of South Africans’ common exhilaration in the seasons and the soil, their common pain for their country’s humiliation before the world and their shared relief at being readmitted to the company of civilized nations.
Video: 'Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inauguration | Flashback | NBC News'
“Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world,” he said.
As a token of renewal, Mandela promised that an amnesty would soon be announced for “various categories” of prisoners.
He lavished praise on F. W. de Klerk, the President who collaborated with him in negotiating the end of white rule and who today took the oath as one of Mandela’s two Vice Presidents in a unity Government.
In a post-inaugural visit to the 50,000 ordinary citizens celebrating on the lawn far below the Government buildings, Mandela held de Klerk’s hand aloft and hailed his predecessor as “one of the greatest reformers, one of the greatest sons of our soil.”
Video: 'Full Nelson Mandela Inauguration on 10th of May 1994'
For the day, at least, blacks and whites were united by the mutual strain of taking in the recently unimaginable
The guests arrayed in the autumnal sun included 45 heads of state, plus an American delegation headed by Vice President Al Gore and including first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mandela’s ascent has been virtually inevitable, at least since last July when negotiators cinched the dates for the first elections open to all races.
In the elections that finished on April 29, 1994, the African National Congress won more than 62 percent of the vote, earning 252 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly that elected Mandela on May 9, 1994, without opposition.
