released 27 years later. i have spoken about freedom in my lifetime. your commitment and your discipline has released me to stand before you today. reporter: and his lack of bitterness towards the apartheid authorities helped him to lead one of the most remarkable political transitions of the 20th century. mandela, the trained lawyer and life-long rebel, outmaneuvered the apartheid leaders. and he steered south africa s peaceful transition to democracy. he won a nobel peace prize together with his former enemy, the apartheid leader f.w. deklerk. to devote myself to the well-being of the republic and all its people. reporter: then he became south africa s first black
most brutal and isolated prisons. another political prisoner remembers the first time he saw mandela in a prison yard. i could see from the way he walked and from his conduct that here was a man already stamping his authority on prison regime. reporter: mandela was released 27 years later. i have spoken about freedom in my lifetime. your suffer, your commitment and your discipline has released me to stand before you today. and his lack of bitterness towards the apartheid authorities helped him to lead one of the most remarkable political tran sixes of the 20th century, mandela, the trained lawyer and life long rebel, outmaneuvered the apartheid leaders and he steered south