The great Nelson Mandela embodied the dream of freedom and justice. He will remain not just a figure of struggle for equality for black South Africans and black people around the world but a celebrated unifying figure for all. His life bought people of all races together to fight for equality, forgiveness and peace.

Since I learnt of his death I have been reflecting on how his fight for equal opportunities has influenced me as a black councillor. I learnt from him the importance of political participation.

I was still at school when Mandela was released from prison and then elected as South Africa’s first black president in 1994. On a rundown council estate block in Newham, where no one that I knew talked about politics or thought it was worth voting, we watched as millions queued for hours to cast their vote for the first time. I then understood why Nelson Mandela was prepared to die for the vote and equality. Those TV images have stayed with me ever since.

I remember visiting Soweto in 2004 and seeing black children playing in the street, which reminding me of my own childhood playing among broken windows and boarded-up homes. Other parts of the city where thousands still lived in tin shacks reminded me of the huge challenge that South Africa still has to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Walking through the streets of Soweto I wanted people to know how much we admired Mandela and how we celebrated on our grey council estate in 1994.

I visited South Africa for the second time in 2006. In Cape Town I went to Grand Parade and stood in front of city hall, the place where Nelson Mandela gave his first speech after being freed from 27 years of imprisonment. With Table Mountain as a backdrop I could feel a sense of history and history in the making. I read the South African Freedom Carter which brought tears to my eyes.

Learning about their struggle against the Apartheid system during my trips to South Africa, I was struck by how Nelson Mandela had led the healing process after his released from prison. He reached out and reassured white South Africans that they had a place in the new South Africa. White and other non-black communities were not grouped together and labelled or referred to as ‘ethnic minorities’; in Mandela’s vision for South Africa all races are equal and important. His leadership at a critical time reassure a nation and laid the foundations for equality which a world can build on.

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The Freedom Charter

We, the People of South Africa, declare for all county and the world to know:

That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood , enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
That only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countryman and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;
And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

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Josephine Channer is a councillor in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. She tweets @JosieChanner
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Photo: Ted Eytan