Nelson Mandela

JOHANNESBURG — Flags were lowered to half-staff across South Africa and people in black townships, in upscale mostly white suburbs and in the country’s vast rural grasslands commemorated Nelson Mandela with song, tears and prayers today while pledging to adhere to the values of unity and democracy that he embodied.

The anti-apartheid leader will be buried on Sunday, Dec. 15, at his rural home in Qunu, and a memorial service in a Johannesburg stadium will be held on Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma announced. Mandela’s body will lie in state at government buildings in Pretoria from Wednesday until the burial, and this coming Sunday will be a national day of prayer and reflection.

South African Airways said it will provide chartered air transport for invited mourners to Mandela’s funeral in his rural hometown in Eastern Cape province.

Hours after Mandela’s death Thursday night, a black SUV-type vehicle containing his coffin, draped in South Africa’s flag, pulled away from Mandela’s home, escorted by military motorcycle outriders, to take the body to a military morgue in Pretoria, the capital.

Many South Africans heard the news, which was announced on state TV by Zuma wearing mourning black just before midnight, upon waking today, and they flocked to his home in Johannesburg’s leafy Houghton neighborhood. One woman hugged her two sons over a floral tribute.

A dozen doves were released into the skies. A man walked around with a tall-stemmed sunflower. People sang tribal songs, the national anthem, God Bless Africa — the anthem of the anti-apartheid struggle — and Christian hymns. Many wore traditional garb of Zulu, Xhosa and South Africa’s other ethnic groups. One carried a sign saying: “He will rule the universe with God.” Jewish and Muslim leaders were also present.

Preparing for larger crowds in the coming days, portable toilets were delivered.

One of the mourners, Ariel Sobel, said he was born in 1993, a year before Mandela was elected president.

“What I liked most about Mandela was his forgiveness, his passion, his diversity, the pact of what he did,” Sobel said. “I am not worried about what will happen next. We will continue as a nation. We knew this was coming. We are prepared.”

In a church service in Cape Town, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate said Mandela would want South Africans themselves to be his “memorial” by adhering to the values of unity and democracy that he embodied.

“All of us here in many ways amazed the world, a world that was expecting us to be devastated by a racial conflagration,” Tutu said, recalling how Mandela helped unite South Africa as it dismantled apartheid, the cruel system of white minority rule, and prepared for all-race elections in 1994. In those elections, Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, became South Africa’s first black president.