THESEGREGATIONEAA
ard Msimang, and George Montsioa,
were mission-educated
Christians
who had qualified as lawyers in England. Seme, for example, had grown up
on the American
mission station
in Natal,
attended
Mount
Hermon
School in Massachusetts, received a bachelor's degree from Columbia Uni-
versity, studied law at Oxford University, and been called to the British bar
in 1910. In his keynote address to the founding conference of the ANCin
Bloemfontein, Seme said that "in the land of their birth, Africans are
treated as hewers of wood and drawers of water." He added: "The white
people of this country have formed what is known as the Union of South
Africa-a
union in which we have no voice in the making of laws and no
part in their administration.
We have called you therefore to this Con-
ference so that we can together devise ways and means of forming our
national union for the purpose of creating national unity and defending our
rights and privileges."64 In the spirit of the black American educator Book-
er T. Washington, the ANC constitution proclaimed "loyalty to all lawfully
constituted
authorities"
and stressed "the educational,
social, economic
and political elevation of the native people in South Africa."65
Down to 1939 and beyond, the ANC remained under the control of