President Mandela saw rugby as a way to help lessen divisions between Black and white South Africans and foster a shared national pride. To Black South Africans, the historically white team-along with their green and gold colors and their Springbok mascot-had come to symbolize the nation’s oppressive minority white rule. In 1973, a UN resolution declared apartheid a 'crime against humanity.' From 1964 to 1992, the country was banned from the Olympic Games, while its rugby team was kept out of the sport's first two World Cups in '87 and '91. The reality of the moment proved far more complicated than the image-making.Īpartheid's gross human rights violations had long made South Africa an international pariah. It marked the nation’s first major sporting event since the end of its segregationist apartheid regime in 1991. And in a masterful act of statecraft conducted squarely in the international spotlight, President Nelson Mandela orchestrated a show of unity in one of the world’s most bitterly divided nations, using the slogan “One Team, One Country.” The match stands as a hugely symbolic moment in South African history. On Jat Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup 15-12 over its arch rival New Zealand.

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