Blood Runner

The long race to freedom… Samuel’s parents and young sister are killed by South African police, innocent bystanders in the Soweto uprising of 1976. Samuel is sent to live with his uncle, a tribal chief, while his brother vows to join the ANC armed struggle and avenge his family’s deaths. In the Homeland, Samuel discovers he can run faster than anyone and before long begins to train under his English-educated uncle. Years later, after the end of Apartheid, Samuel is selected as the token black South African athlete to run in the Atlanta Olympics. President Nelson Mandela is there when he wins his gold medal, and Samuel dedicates it to ‘a very special man… I was running for the President. I was running for my country.’ This powerful and moving story portrays what it was like for blacks growing up in South Africa at that time and the different ways in which they struggled to gain their freedom.