And, then he had the courage to fight for what he believed in. And he and his colleagues fought with the weapons that were available to them. For all that, the racist tyrants in Pretoria declared them beyond the pale, wild animals that had to be kept under lock and key and under the watchful and untiring eyes of armed prison guards who know they have a right to shoot to kill. We meet today on this eminently joyful but also heartrending occasion not only because good men and women of South Africa languish in prison. We have come together because justice in that country is in chains.
Democracy is locked behind jail doors.
A whole society has been imprisoned within a virulently racist system, the like of which humanity has not experienced since the destruction of the scourge of Nazism. Among these are the Sharpeville Six, Robert McBride and the other freedom fighters whom Pretoria has sentenced to death. They must be saved from the gallows and granted their freedom. We demand that Popo Molefe, Terror Lekota, Moses Mayekiso, the railway workers and others who are charged with treason and other serious offences, be freed and allowed to rejoin their families and communities. We salute the artists who have volunteered their talents to perform in this concert free of charge, as their own statement of commitment to the cause for which Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Elias Motsoaledi and others have sacrificed so much.