took control of the African National Congress, spurred by the wartime
protests in Johannesburg and the miners' strike of 1946. In 1949, the
annual conference elected three members of the Youth League to the na-
tional executive: Walter Sisulu (b. 1912), Oliver Tambo (b. 1917), and
Nelson Mandela (b. 1918). All three were from the Transkei and had
attended mission schools. Both Tambo and Mandela had been expelled
from Fort Hare, but they had later qualified as lawyers by correspondence
207