Since his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela has emerged as the world's most potent moral leader since Gandhi. As president of the ANC and head of the anti-apartheid movement, he has been instrumental in moving South Africa toward black-majority rule. Throughout the world he is revered as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. In this autobiography Nelson Mandela details the development of his political consciousess and describes his pivotal role in the formation of the ANC Youth League. He brings to life his dramatic years underground, which lead to a sentence of life imprisonment in 1964, and sheds new light on his surprisingly eventful quarter century behind bars. And he takes us inside the momentous events of the 1990s, leading up to South Africa's first-ever multi-racial elections, and his feelings about his near landslide victory as president.