Mandela's Life Celebrated

A day after Nelson Mandela's death, South Africans of all colors erupted in song, dance and tears Friday in emotional celebrations of the life of the man who bridged this country's black-white divide and helped avert a race war.

At a service in Cape Town, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel laureate like Mandela and himself a monumental figure in the struggle against apartheid, called on South Africa's 51 million people to embrace the values of unity and democracy that Mandela embodied. "God, thank you for the gift of Madiba," Tutu said, using Mandela's clan name.

At Mandela's home in the leafy Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton, where he spent his last sickly months, a multi-racial crowd paid tribute.

President Jacob Zuma announced a schedule of ceremonies expected to draw huge numbers of world dignitaries and ordinary mourners.

Mandela's body is to lie in state from Wednesday through Friday after a memorial service at the same Johannesburg stadium where he made his last public appearance in 2010 at the closing ceremony of the soccer World Cup. He is to be buried in his rural childhood village of Qunu on Dec. 15, after a state funeral.

The White House said President Obama and his wife, Michelle, would visit South Africa next week to participate in memorial events. Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, are to join the Obamas on Air Force One. Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also plan to travel to South Africa for the memorials.

- APEndText