Columbia University professor and Nation columnist Patricia Williams joined Tom Brokaw and Ari Melber on MSNBC to remember the late Nelson Mandela. Williams said one of Mandela’s defining legacies was signing South Africa’s constitution, “one of the most progressive in the world.” She also compared and contrasted the South African leader to Barack Obama, saying the American president invokes some of the hope and inspiration of Mandela, but “the question of Guantánamo and certain foreign policies makes his situation a more complex one.” —Steven Hsieh