After Climbing A Great Hill One

From the closing pages of Long Walk to Freedom (1994), written as Nelson Mandela reflected on becoming South Africa's first democratically elected president. He used the metaphor to describe the feeling of emerging from 27 years in prison in 1990 — a moment that might have seemed like the summit — only to find the work of dismantling apartheid and building a new democracy still ahead. The autobiography was begun in secret on Robben Island in 1976 and completed after his release.