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In a speech covered by MSNBC & MSNBC.com, President Barack Obama challenged young Africans to rise to the challenge of shoring up progress on the continent that rests on a “fragile foundation,” summoning them to fulfill the legacy of South Africa’s beloved former leader Nelson Mandela. In his own effort to carve out a piece of that legacy, Obama announced a new U.S.-led initiative to double access to electric power across Africa, vowing to help bring “light where there is currently darkness.”

“Nelson Mandela showed us that one man’s courage can move the world,” Obama said during an evening speech Sunday at the University of Cape Town.

Obama’s remarks capped an emotional day that included a visit to the Robben Island prison where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. The 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero has been in hospital for most of this month and is said to be in critical condition. In deeply personal remarks, the U.S. president spoke of standing in Mandela’s cramped prison cell with his two young daughters, Malia and Sasha.

“Seeing them stand within the walls that once surrounded Nelson Mandela, I knew this was an experience they would never forget,” he said. “I knew that they now appreciated a little bit more the sacrifices that Madiba and others had made for freedom,” Obama added, referring to Mandela by his clan name.