belafonte,is harry maxine waters and larry king. thank you for joining me on my tribute to nelson mandela, starting now. >> there is a saying dr. king said, there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life doing the right thing. we are halfway to completely eliminate hunger and we have a lot of work to do. spending over $1 billion to fight hunger in the u.s.. if we were together we can stamp this out. >> and by contributions to your pbs stations, from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ tavis: please to be joined now by harry belafonte, a longtime friend of president and della. an advocate for justice and equality in his own right. i met with him in new york city to talk about nelson mandela's great contributions to the world. envious and jealous of you for so many reasons, not the least of which is that handsome visage i am looking at right now, but you have had a chance to befriend everybody, duboise, martin luther king, paul robeson, nelson mandela. out of all the people you have been friends with and strugg

announcing today his inauguratie includes rosy perez harry belafonte and rustle simmons. celebrations are planned in new york city burrows. he takes office january 1. >> president obama and his daughters caused a stir today when going shopping at a washington, d.c. bookstore. the third year in a row the first family made a postthanksgiving trip to a bookstore to do their part for small business saturday. the president bought 20 books for all age g. >> well, i was down in san francisco's union square and had to take off my scar of. it was pretty warm out there. let's check with in mary rose. a beautiful night out there . the sunset more than two hours ago and temperatures falling off but we had a mild afternoon as heather mentioned widespread 60s around the bay area. 64 san francisco, temperatures now the 50s for most of us, even few upper 40s out there. mid-40s napa, 5 p #3 sapta rowsa, 46 walnut creek, 54 livermore, 54 oakland, 53 san francisco. winds are generally light and skies mostly clear. we're going to see a return of the patchy fog as we get into late tonight and

. >> your company mandela along with harry belafonte and others on an eight city tour which he may just after his release. >> she talksike? to him about his 27 years in prison. >> for the first 18 years of sentence, he would only get one letter every six months, a visitor for 30 minutes. how did you keep your spirits up? he never lost confidence. he always had faith. it was never a dark moment for him. i found it stunning. >> he came here for one reason, to say thank you. for all the people who had been arrested in front of the south african embassy and protested on his behalf around the country. sam ford, abc 7 news. >> our coverage of a life and death of nelson mandela continues ahead coming up at 6:00. former hear for the ambassadors and we will hear about the tribute of the life. he details his conversation with the future president including the signal the two developed to know that they were being spied on. >>5, 4, 3, 2, 1! [applause] >> how about that? that was just moments ago when the first family lit the national christmas tree. not letting the weather stop them. everyone look

belafonte.ame to see these things through the avenue of the arts. and i think it would come to them through lots of different things. we think of plaurt martin luther king now as this tremendous, iconic activist. but w.b. dubois said of the dr. king, i expected to see many things in my life, but never a radical baptist preacher. >> yeah, never a radical football team. >> so i think these things kind of open up into however you come into a broader arena. but one of the things i want to make too is the point keith reeves from espn, the magazine, made. and that is, when you look at it, these student athletes, at hbcus, are really the only student athletes we have. because these are young people who are playing at institutions who generate large sums of money for athletics. one of which is the institution i teach at. these are not student athletes. these are uncompensated professionals. >> so interesting. >> so i think that's something we should keep in mind. >> so there's a kind of purity in that i

thinking about harry belafonte who was somebody that nelson mandela reached out to and was his guide and greeter when he came to this country. what a symbol that was the way that nelson mandela himself wanted to acknowledge his relationship with the american civil rights movement. he was conscious of his legacy to people, but also the people around the globe who were his brothers and sisters and contributed to that struggle. so many civil rights leaders came to understand the role of racism globally. took part in the struggle to the best of south africa and to end apartheid. we are not as white americans used to looking to an african nationful we are exceptional. to any other nation as an example, but south africa has done a lot of things right. it is an example for the globe for how to move forward towards a multiracial democracy and do it with a lot of passion. he was a revolutionary. i don't want to sugar coat that. he believed in a real transformation and it was done peacefully. beautifully. >> if you are still with us, charlene, i would like to get your reaction to president oba

there's harry belafonte too. tell me what stood out to you the most, as you think back to the young lady you were at that time and now how you remember that specioexperience. >> well, i'm still a young lady, but i think that what was so impressive about nelson mandela was both the gentle spirit, he was driven by a great passion and love for humidity but he also had a soul of steel and he was a radical revolutionary, and that didn't change after south africa was free from apartheid. if you looked at his policies, and we talked about this a lot on the plane. you know, he worked very closely with the communist party. he formed the armed liberation movement there. he never renounced violence. he was given an opportunity to leave prison if he would. he refused to do so. later he condemned the war in iraq, which he called an extension of u.s. imperialism. fidel castro was an inspiration to him. he said this was a man who was very much a revolutionary, and it's so ironic to see, for example, many of the leading republic

i think of people like stevie wonder, harry belafonte, oprah winfrey. many, many others who clearly have worked with nelson mandela, worked with the foundation to continue his legacy. i'm sure they will want to be a celebration. it will be a celebration of his life. let's listen in. these are live pictures from jo nance burg. ♪ nelson mandela ♪ nelson mandela ♪ ♪ ♪ [ chanting ] [ chanting ] >>> let's go to robyn kurnow, she's watching all of this going on. robin give us some background. these folks are really excited. they're paying their respects to a great, great man. >> the words of that song that you heard them singing over and over again, it's been sung in the last six months across south africa. nelson mandela, nelson mandela, there's no one else like you. there's not much else to say, is there? it's an old antiapartheid struggle song. this song has carried through generations of activists in this country. it was no doubt illegal during the apartheid days. it was like a rallying cry to nelson many della when he was locked up in jail. nobody was se

growing up as an activist, it tempered a lot of us that got to know people that were close and harry belafontepic proportions. the few times i was honored to be around him, you are moved by the balance of humility. it was something you never saw. i never did in anyone else. you realize you were in the presence of greatness, but he was such a humble and great guy at the same time. it is really something we probably as president obama said we will never see again. >> nelson mandela had a royal birth as the son of a tribal chief, but he gave up that to throw off apartheid rule in south africa. let's go to the report on the world's most famous political prisoner. >> the south africa that nelson mandela was born into nine decades ago will never be the same because of him. the lifelong campaign made him a hero to the people and at one time an enemy of the state. mandela's tribal name translates as the who stirs up dust. mandela stirred up a storm fighting for democracy. >> it has been a gift for which i am to prepared to die. >> first arrest in 1962, he was convicted of sabotage and experience to ov