On This Day In Music History (11 June 1988) Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Freedom fest Music Concert At Wembley Stadium

On This Day In Music History (11 June 1988) Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Freedom fest Music Concert At Wembley Stadium

On this day in music, June 11, 1988, the star-studded Freedomfest concert took place at London’s Wembley Stadium. The event, which marked the 70th birthday of the then-imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary, Nelson Mandela, was organized to raise awareness of apartheid (institutionalized racial segregation) in South Africa and called for the country’s political prisoners, including Mandela, to be freed. Performances by the likes of Whitney Houston, George Michael, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, and the Bee Gees were broadcast live to an estimated global audience of one billion. Less than two years later, Mandela was freed from prison, while apartheid was repealed in 1991.