Join us for a lecture with Nadia Davids, award winning South African playwright and novelist, for the 2026 Nelson Mandela Lecture. Discussion will follow the lecture. Light refreshment will be provided.

In 2005, the Africana Research Center and the Department of African and American Studies created the Nelson Mandela Lecture Series to recognize and introduce the Penn State community to the scholarship of an African human rights activist. The ARC named the lecture after Nelson Mandela, not only because he changed the sociopolitical structure of South Africa, but because he challenged the world to have a conscience in addressing human rights.

Nelson Mandela received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, accepted it “on behalf of all South Africans who suffered and sacrificed so much to bring peace to our land.” He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on May 10, 1994, and served until June 1999. Despite retiring from public life, he continued to give voice to local and worldwide issues until his death in December 2013.

The ARC has hosted leading scholars, activists, and artists for the past 20 years in honor of Nelson Mandela's legacy.