Mandela speaks of education not as self-improvement or personal advancement, but explicitly as a *weapon*—a tool for combat against injustice. The word choice matters: weapons are for those without conventional power, for the dispossessed. He knew firsthand that literacy and critical thinking had freed him intellectually during twenty-seven years of imprisonment, allowing him to understand his oppressors rather than merely hate them. When young people in underfunded schools organize for better conditions or see through propaganda, they're proving Mandela right—not because education makes them richer or more accomplished, but because it gives them the ability to challenge systems designed to keep them small.