Throughout 2025, the World Tribune is featuring on the cover historical acts by people that shifted public sentiment and even thawed tensions between nations. In this issue, we focus on the power of a single gesture toward reconciliation.
On June 24, 1995, Nelson Mandela entered the locker room of the South African national rugby team, the Springboks, as the players readied themselves for their first Rugby World Cup final.
The newly democratic South Africa was hosting the tournament for the first time, and Mandela, who had become the South African president the year before, arrived wearing the Springbok jersey, beloved by white Afrikaners, with captain Francois Pienaar’s No. 6 on the back.
The team had been banned from competing in the first two World Cups (held every four years) amid antiapartheid sporting boycotts. Mandela’s surprise visit galvanized the team.
In the locker room, he spoke to winger Chester Williams, the only non-white player, and reportedly told him: “I’m proud of you. Go make the rest of South Africa proud too.”
Williams in the quarter-final against Samoa had earned a first for the country, scoring four times in a single match. He retained his place as a starter in the team’s semifinal win over France and its overtime victory over New Zealand to clinch the championship.
The photo of Mandela handing Pienaar the Webb Ellis Cup, in a Springbok jersey (on the cover), became a watershed moment for postapartheid South Africa, casting a new light on the country as its people came together as one to support their national team.
While the team’s win is remembered for this single moment, that was not where the story ended. Bryan Habana, 12, watched the finals from the stands. He had dreamed of becoming a footballer until the introduction of rugby to South Africa. He went on to play for the Springboks, the apex of his career coming in 2007, when he equaled Williams’ achievement, scoring four times in Springbok’s opening match against Samoa.
In the team’s final match with England, he donned the same No. 11 jersey as Williams as the team regained the world championship title 12 years after the country’s first win.
Siya Kolisi, 16, was watching the game at a tavern because his family didn’t own a TV. Less than six years later, he made his debut on the Springbok team, alongside Habana.
Kolisi was captain when the country won its third World Cup title in 2019 in Japan, after besting England 32–12. Kolisi, as the team captain, presented the South African president a No. 6 jersey in honor of Nelson Mandela’s gesture of reconciliation at the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The diverse squad went on to win the 2023 World Cup under the banner “Together in One Nation, One Team.” They remain the reigning world champions.
March 7, 2025 World Tribune, p. 11
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