25 years to a new South Africa.

"FREEDOM. FREEDOM. ALL WE WANT is Freedom!--send a message to Soweto. Send a message now!" went the chorus to Jeffrey Osborne's popular 1986 anti-apartheid protest song. Eventually, the former leaders of South Africa did accept the message that the international community would not accept anything less than equal citizenship for its nonwhite residents.

Numerous events that took place in South Africa and elsewhere led to the 1991 repeal of South Africa's apartheid laws. For example, international attention was drawn to the plight of South Africans during the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Hundreds of blacks, most of them school-age children, were killed in violent clashes with the police. The students were protesting the introduction of Afrikaans in schools as the language of instruction. The language requirement would have further isolated Africans from the English-speaking world. The outrage only intensified when a year later police killed Steve Biko, the leader of the South African Students' Organization.

In the 1980s, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu became an international symbol of the battle to end apartheid. He took his message of freedom throughout the world and was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

The 1989 retirement of South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha, and his replacement by F.W. de Klerk, represented a significant political change. The imposition of sanctions by the United States forced de Klerk to accept the reality that economic isolation would translate into financial disaster for all South Africans. Bowing to tremendous pressure, de Klerk released political prisoners Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders.

The country's white residents also eventually read the writing on the wall. In 1992, more than two-thirds supported anti-apartheid reforms in a whites-only referendum.

Mandela, ever the gracious statesman, refused to dwell on the injustice of his politically-motivated imprisonment. Instead, he spoke of the coming day when all South Africans would be able to live and work together.

Drawing lessons from the American civil rights struggle, Mandela moved quickly to convince South Africans that their struggle would be won or lost with the ballot. For his efforts, de Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela, who would be elected president in that country's first all-race elections one year later.

To be sure, there is much to be done in South Africa. But that country's recent history would indicate that the goal of a leveled playing field is not an unrealistic one. The story of South African apartheid is the story of winning against all odds through cooperation.