The Day Gogo Went to Vote

Dawn breaks lavender over Soweto in April 1994, and ten-year-old Thembi grips her hundred-year-old Gogo’s weathered hand as neighbors chant “Amandla!” past corrugated shacks toward the polling station—the first time Black South Africans may cast a ballot since the harsh decades of apartheid. Wheels on Gogo’s borrowed wheelchair squeak like hopeful crickets while church ladies fan her with voting slips, and taxi drivers turn bumpers into drumheads, drumming Racial Justice and Political Justice into the dusty street. The line corkscrews around mango trees; Thembi fears the sun will smother Gogo’s fragile breath, yet the elder’s eyes blaze brighter than Jozi’s neon skyline as she whispers stories of Nelson Mandela’s long walk and vows this vote will stitch their torn past into something new. When soldiers glance nervously at the swelling crowd, tension hums like a taut guitar string—will intimidation steal Gogo’s moment or will resilience outsing fear? Leonard Jenkins’s glowing art bathes every face in sunrise gold, celebrating intergenerational courage that turns ballots into seeds of change. One question still flutters like the flag newly raised above Pretoria: what future will Thembi’s generation harvest from Gogo’s ink-stained thumb? Tap the blue ➕ to Save to List for later inspiration, or hit the bold arrow to Learn More and connect your classroom, youth group, or congregation to this triumphant march toward freedom.