Nelson who?

My students made me very sad today. I had them read some sample speeches, and one was Bill Clinton presenting the Congressional Gold Medal to Nelson Mandela and another was Nelson Mandela accepting the medal. Someone in one of my classes asked me, "Who's Nelson Mandela." I looked at them disbelievingly and asked if they were serious. Several other students spoke up and said they didn't know who he was either. Seriously, one of the greatest men of the last 50 years and less than half of my class recognized the name or had any idea of who he was. I went on to explain who he was and his contribution to society and his winning the Nobel Peace Prize. They scoffed the peace prize (because if Al Gore could win it, then it has apparently lost all importance). Then they said that his fight had nothing to do with them, so why should they care. I sputtered a bit, unsure of what to say - the man who endured years of imprisonment and was instrumental to ending the systematic racist regime of his country being described as not applicable to their lives? For the first time in my life, I felt some fear for our future...