The ICU organizers were frustrated Africans who had had a few years of
missionary
education
but had not fulfilled the expectations
of upward
mobility engendered in their schools. They regarded the leaders of the ANC
as "good boys" who were tied to the apron strings of white liberals. Draw-
ing ideas from the independent
churches, from Marxism,
and from the
back-to-Africa
movement
of Marcus
Garvey, they galvanized
rural au-
diences with strong rhetoric, including promises of land repossession and
national
liberation.
In the Transkei there were echoes of the millennial
beliefs that had led to the cattle-killing in 1857: "Arna Melika" -the
Afro-
Americans-were
coming with ships and planes to liberate South Africa
and destroy all Whites and black nonbelievers.s"
Incidents occurred from
the eastern
Cape to the northern
Transvaal.
Africans refused to work,
deserted, stole livestock, destroyed property.
White farmers and the government acted ruthlessly to suppress the ICU,
harassing
organizers
and evicting
"trouble-makers."
The
ICU leaders,
moreover, proclaimed
grandiose
goals but failed to design realistic pro-
grams of action, became corrupt and quarrelsome,
and lost touch with the
masses. Kadalie himself drew a salary of thirty pounds a month, at least