When was the ANC formed?
Parliament of South Africa
African National Congress: The ANC was created in 1912, but became the leading political party after the end of apartheid in 1994. Its main platform rests on racial equality and eradicating the socioeconomic classes which are often based on race. The ANC has been considered a party for native South Africans, especially before 2009 when party leader President Zuma faced multiple accusations regarding corruption, particularly using public funds for his own purposes. The economic struggle of South Africa as well as the police brutality have both been blamed on the ANC. Currently the ANC holds 249 seats in parliament. Support for the ANC went down between the 2009 and the 2014 elections, with violent protests erupting all over the country in response to the allegations of corruption within the ANC.
Parks Tau
After apartheid came to an end in 1994 and South Africa's liberation party, the Africa National Congress (ANC), took power, Tau continued to take on roles enabling him to help build a united and equitable South Africa. He was 24 years old when he was elected regional secretary of the ANC in Johannesburg and in 1996, he went on to serve on the Southern Metropolitan Local Council's Urban Development Committee. In 2000, following the first democratic elections to take place at city level, Tau was appointed as a Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) of Johannesburg, overseeing the portfolios of Developmental Planning, Transportation, and Environment from 2000 to 2003, as well as the Finance and Economic Development portfolio between 2003 and 2011.
History of South African nationality
With significant pressure from both internal and external sources, the Apartheid regime was dismantled by the National Party (NP) in the early 1990s. Serious negotiations between the National Party, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) took place in an effort to produce a new democratic system that perpetuated racial equality but did not leave the whites dangerously vulnerable to resentment-fueled discrimination or violence.
History of South Africa (1994–present)
The ANC had risen to power on the strength of a socialist agenda embodied in a Freedom Charter, which was intended to form the basis of ANC social, economic and political policies. The Charter decreed that "the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people". ANC icon Nelson Mandela, asserted in a statement released on 25 January 1990: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable." But, after the ANC's electoral victory in 1994, the eradication of mass poverty through nationalisation was never implemented. The ANC-led government, in a historic reversal of policy, adopted neoliberalism instead. A wealth tax on the super-rich to fund developmental projects was set aside, while domestic and international corporations, enriched by apartheid, were excused from any financial reparations. Large corporations were allowed to shift their main listings abroad. According to a leading South African economics expert, the government's concessions to big business represented "treacherous decisions that [will] haunt South Africa for generations to come".
Decoration for Merit in Gold
Umkhonto we Sizwe, abbreviated as MK, Zulu for "Spear of the Nation", was the para-military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). It was established on 16 December 1961 to wage an armed "struggle" against the Nationalist government inside South Africa. On 27 April 1994, Umkhonto we Sizwe was amalgamated with six other military forces into the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
Defiance Campaign
In 1950, the ANC started promoting demonstrations, mass action, boycotts, strikes and acts of civil disobedience. During this time, 8,000 black people are arrested "for defying apartheid laws and regulations." The South African Indian Congress (SAIC) worked in partnership with the ANC. The NP used the Population Registration Act to ensure that individuals were permanently classified by race and only allowed to live in areas specified by the Group Areas Act. On June 26, 1950, the National Day of Protest took place. The ANC asked that people not go to work as an act of protest. As a result of the protest, many people lost their jobs and the ANC set up a fund to help them.
Department of National Intelligence and Security (South Africa)
Department of National Intelligence and Security (NAT) is a defunct security service of the African National Congress (ANC) in exile. At the ANC's Morogoro Conference in Tanzania during 1969, in one of the many decisions made to the organisations structure, it was decided to form a department that would protect the organisations human and material resources. This department was then formed in April 1969.
New National Party (South Africa)
The NP entered the democratic era led by former president of South Africa F. W. de Klerk, the winner with Nelson Mandela of the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in dismantling apartheid. He was succeeded by Marthinus van Schalkwyk until the eventual disbanding and merger of the party with the African National Congress (ANC). Van Schalkwyk renamed the party towards the end of 1997. In February 1996, the party had announced that it would become a nonracial, Christian-Democratic political organization, and Van Schalkwyk sough to build on this in his efforts to rebrand the NNP as a nonracial, value driven party.
Nelson Mandela
Inspired by the actions of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement in the Cuban Revolution, in 1961 Mandela, Sisulu, and Slovo co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation", abbreviated MK). Becoming chairman of the militant group, Mandela gained ideas from literature on guerilla warfare by Marxist militants Mao and Che Guevara as well as from the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Although initially declared officially separate from the ANC so as not to taint the latter's reputation, MK was later widely recognised as the party's armed wing. Most early MK members were white communists who were able to conceal Mandela in their homes; after hiding in communist Wolfie Kodesh's flat in Berea, Mandela moved to the communist-owned Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, there joined by Raymond Mhlaba, Slovo, and Bernstein, who put together the MK constitution. Although in later life Mandela denied, for political reasons, ever being a member of the Communist Party, historical research published in 2011 strongly suggested that he had joined in the late 1950s or early 1960s. This was confirmed by both the SACP and the ANC after Mandela's death. According to the SACP, he was not only a member of the party, but also served on its Central Committee.
Bulhoek massacre
The South African Native National Congress (SANNC), now known as the ANC, was hosting its ninth annual meeting since its formation in 1912 at Bloemfontein on the day of the massacre. The SANNC was opposed to the government's actions in Bulhoek, stating that it had failed to protect and respect the Israelites' religious beliefs. The SANNC came to a resolution that the Natives Land Act of 1913 was impracticable and that the government had failed to carry out its principles. According to the SANNC the Israelite sect had attracted people who had been pushed off their land by the 1913 Land Act. The Congress sent a telegram to Arthur Barlow, (Member of Parliament for Bloemfontein North) to request a parliamentary inquiry into the shootings. In commemoration of those who had passed, the SANNC adjourned the conference and undertook a Death March, after which a memorial service was held.
Reconstruction and Development Programme
Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is a South African socio-economic policy framework implemented by the African National Congress (ANC) government of Nelson Mandela in 1994 after months of discussions, consultations and negotiations between the ANC, its Alliance partners the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, and "mass organisations in the wider civil society".
South African Communist Party
Aware that the National Party, elected to government in 1948, was about to ban the Communist Party, the CPSA decided by a majority to dissolve itself. A minority felt that the party should organise underground, but the majority apparently argued that this would be unnecessary; that support should be given to the African National Congress (ANC) in the drive to majority rule. After its voluntary dissolution, the CPSA was declared illegal in 1950. In 1953, a group of former CPSA members launched the "South African Communist Party" that remained — as had been the CPSA — aligned with the Soviet Union. The ban on the party was lifted in 1990 when the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations and individuals were also unbanned, and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
African National Congress
In 2004, the ANC declared itself to be a social democratic party.
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
A Xhosa, Mandela was born to the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, British South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, he and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. Mandela was appointed President of the ANC's Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state following the Rivonia Trial.
Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure, and with fears of a racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country's racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, Mandela's administration retained its predecessor's liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty, and expand healthcare services. Internationally, he acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term, and in 1999 was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far-left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid's supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Widely regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours—including the Nobel Peace Prize—and became the subject of a cult of personality. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, and described as the "Father of the Nation".
Internal resistance to apartheid
In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations against the pass laws. The PAC called for blacks to demonstrate against pass books on 21 March 1960. One of the mass demonstrations organised by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, a township near Vereeniging. Estimates of the size of the crowd vary from 3,000 to 20,000. The crowd converged on the Sharpeville police station, singing and offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their pass books. A group of about 300 police panicked and opened fire on the demonstrators after the crowd trampled down the fence surrounding the police station. They killed 69 people and injured 186. All the victims were black, and most of them had been shot in the back. Many witnesses stated that the crowd was not violent, but Colonel J. Pienaar, the senior police officer in charge on the day, said, "Hordes of natives surrounded the police station. My car was struck with a stone. If they do these things they must learn their lesson the hard way". The event became known as the Sharpeville massacre. In its aftermath the government banned the African National Congress (ANC) and the PAC.
Mary Benson (campaigner)
Through all this work, Benson became familiar with the African National Congress (ANC). She assisted Nelson Mandela's escape from South Africa in 1962, and interviewed several prominent figures in the ANC, including Walter Sisulu and James Calata. Based upon these experiences, she wrote the first general history of the ANC: "The African Patriots" (Faber & Faber, London, 1964).
Harry Nkumbula
As a militant, articulate and uncompromising opponent of the Federation, Nkumbula was elected president of the Northern Rhodesian African Congress in 1951. The party was soon renamed the African National Congress (ANC). In 1953, Kenneth Kaunda became secretary general of the ANC. When Nkumbula called a national strike - disguised as a "national day of prayer" — in opposition to the Federation, the African population did not respond. This was due to the opposition of the president of the African Mineworkers' Union, Lawrence Katilungu, who campaigned against the strike on the Copperbelt. In October 1953, the white colonial settlers formed the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, ignoring the black African majority's opposition. In the early months of 1954, Nkumbula and Kaunda organised a partially successful boycott of European-owned butcheries in Lusaka. However, Nkumbula, Kaunda and the ANC found it difficult to mobilize their people against the Federation.
Apartheid
Between 1987–1993, the National Party entered into bilateral negotiations with the African National Congress, the leading anti-apartheid political movement, for ending segregation and introducing majority rule. In 1990, prominent ANC figures such as Nelson Mandela were released from prison. Apartheid legislation was repealed on 17 June 1991, pending fully democratic, multiracial elections set for April 1994.
Apartheid
In May 1961, before the declaration of South Africa as a Republic, an assembly representing the banned ANC called for negotiations between the members of the different ethnic groupings, threatening demonstrations and strikes during the inauguration of the Republic if their calls were ignored.
Zambian African National Congress (1958–59)
The ZANC was formed by Kenneth Kaunda on 24 October 1958, following a split from the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress led by Harry Nkumbula, which Kaunda regarded as being too moderate. However, it was banned in March the following year and Kaunda imprisoned. Whilst Kaunda was in jail, the United National Independence Party was established as a successor to the ZANC; Kaunda joined the new party upon his release and was elected its president in 1960.
Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging
The Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (Afrikaner Unity Movement) was a small South African political party founded in Pretoria in 1998. It was led by Cassie Aucamp, and based on Afrikaner nationalism. The party participated in the South African general election of 1999, in which it gained one member elected to the National Assembly. In September 2003, shortly before the 2004 election, the AEB merged with two likeminded parties, the Conservative Party and the Freedom Front, to form a new party known as the Freedom Front Plus (FF +), which went on to win 4 parliamentary seats.
History of the African National Congress
Following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, the ANC leadership concluded that the methods of non-violence such as those utilised by Gandhi against the British Empire during their colonisation of India were not suitable against the Apartheid system. A military wing was formed in 1961, called Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), meaning "Spear of the Nation", with Mandela as its first leader. MK operations during the 1960s primarily involved targeting and sabotaging government facilities. Mandela was arrested in 1962, convicted of sabotage in 1964 and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, along with Sisulu and other ANC leaders following the Rivonia Trial.
Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (formerly known as the Pan Africanist Congress, abbreviated as the PAC) is a South African Black Nationalist movement that is now a political party. It was founded by an Africanist group, led by Robert Sobukwe, that broke away from the African National Congress (ANC).
Assassination of Chris Hani
During this time anti-apartheid political groups such as the Afrapix and ANC became heavily organised and employed both passive and aggressive methods to challenge the longevity of apartheid. From 1963 until 1990 Nelson Mandela, founder of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was imprisoned resulting in international support of anti-apartheid progress. From 1985 the United Kingdom and United States imposed an economic sanction upon South Africa, especially upon the importation of coal and uranium, in attempt to strong-arm a democratic election. These sanctions alongside pressure from the United Nations were largely ineffective due to various loop-holes and the independent strength of the South African economy. In 1994 South Africa held its first full democratic election inclusive of all racial votes, resulting in the election of the African National Congress who secured 63.1% of the popular vote and 252 seats in the National Assembly. The ANC has been the governing party of South Africa until present.
Nelson Mandela
In 1952, the ANC began preparation for a joint Defiance Campaign against apartheid with Indian and communist groups, founding a National Voluntary Board to recruit volunteers. The campaign was designed to follow the path of nonviolent resistance influenced by Mahatma Gandhi; some supported this for ethical reasons, but Mandela instead considered it pragmatic. At a Durban rally on 22 June, Mandela addressed an assembled crowd of 10,000, initiating the campaign protests, for which he was arrested and briefly interned in Marshall Square prison. These events established Mandela as one of the best-known black political figures in South Africa. With further protests, the ANC's membership grew from 20,000 to 100,000; the government responded with mass arrests and introduced the Public Safety Act, 1953 to permit martial law. In May, authorities banned Transvaal ANC President J. B. Marks from making public appearances; unable to maintain his position, he recommended Mandela as his successor. Although Africanists opposed his candidacy, Mandela was elected regional president in October.
Nelson Mandela
In April 1959, Africanists dissatisfied with the ANC's united front approach founded the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC); Mandela disagreed with the PAC's racially exclusionary views, describing them as "immature" and "naïve". Both parties took part in an anti-pass campaign in early 1960, in which Africans burned the passes that they were legally obliged to carry. One of the PAC-organised demonstrations was fired upon by police, resulting in the deaths of 69 protesters in the Sharpeville massacre. The incident brought international condemnation of the government and resulted in rioting throughout South Africa, with Mandela publicly burning his pass in solidarity.
Sonia Bunting
In 1991, after twenty-eight years in exile, the couple returned to Cape Town, when the bans against the SACP and the African National Congress (ANC) were lifted. Bunting served for the ANC in the campaigns of the 1994 and 1999 elections and was one of the founders of the Cape Town Friends of Cuba, continuing her political activities until her death.
Zackie Achmat
Achmat set fire to his school in Salt River in support of the 1976 student protests and was imprisoned several times during his youth for political activities. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1980 while serving time in prison. Between 1985 and 1990 he was a member of the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC, a Trotskyist breakaway group of the ANC and precursor to the Democratic Socialist Movement.
Sylvester Chisembele
He joined the African National Congress. By 1955, Mr Chisembele had organised a firm ANC base in Fort Rosebery (Mansa) using his own resources. At Lubwe Mission with the full participation of Mr Sylvester Muchengwa and Mr Protasio Kamayanda, both leading personalities and leaders in the Catholic Church, the ANC spread rapidly.
History of the African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is the current governing party of the Republic of South Africa. The ANC was founded in 1912 in Bloemfontein and is second the oldest liberation movement in Africa (the Natal Indian Congress was established in 1894) and one of the oldest liberation movements in the world.
Zambian African National Congress
In 1958 the party was divided on whether to participate in general elections in which only a minority of the black population was allowed to vote. The more radical Kaunda broke away, and formed the Zambian African National Congress, which was banned in 1959. The NRANC won a single seat in the elections. In the 1962 general elections the party won seven seats, becoming the third-largest faction in the Legislative Assembly and held the balance of power. Prior to the elections Nkumbula had made a secret electoral pact with the United Federal Party, but decided to form a government with the United National Independence Party.
History of the African National Congress
In 1946 the ANC allied with the South African Communist Party in assisting in the formation of the South African Mine Workers' Union. After the miners strike became a general strike, the ANC's President General Alfred Bitini Xuma, along with delegates of the South African Indian Congress (of which Mahatma Gandhi was a member) attended the 1946 session of the United Nations General Assembly where the treatment of Indians in South Africa was raised by the Government of India. Together, they raised the issue of the police brutality against the miners strike and the wider struggle for equality in South Africa. The ANC also worked with the Natal Indian Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress.
Apartheid
When the government overlooked them, the strikers (among the main organisers was a 42-year-old, Thembu-origin Nelson Mandela) carried out their threats. The government countered swiftly by giving police the authority to arrest people for up to twelve days and detaining many strike leaders amid numerous cases of police brutality. Defeated, the protesters called off their strike. The ANC then chose to launch an armed struggle through a newly formed military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which would perform acts of sabotage on tactical state structures. Its first sabotage plans were carried out on 16 December 1961, the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River.
History of the African National Congress
The organisation was initially founded as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) on in Bloemfontein on 8 January 1912. Its founders were Saul Msane (Esq.), Josiah Gumede, John Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, and Sol Plaatje along with chiefs, people's representatives, church organisations, and other prominent individuals. It aimed to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms. The organisation was renamed the ANC in 1923. The organisation, from its inception represented both traditional and modern elements, from tribal chiefs to church and community bodies and educated black professionals, though women were only admitted as affiliate members from 1931 and as full members in 1943.
African Christian Democratic Party
According to newspaper reports at the time, the ACDP was founded on 9 December 1993. The party claims on its web site, however, that it was founded on 16 or 17 January 1994 (i.e. exactly one hundred days before South Africa's 1994 national elections). This is because the party's first official congress took place 100 days before the elections. The party's original manifesto included Christian norms, religious freedom, a freemarket system, and human rights under a federal governmental system.
Oliver Tambo
Tambo, Mandela and Walter Sisulu were the founding members of the ANC Youth League in 1943, with Tambo becoming its first National Secretary and a member of the National Executive in 1948. The Youth League proposed a change in the tactics of the anti-apartheid movement. Previously, the ANC had sought to further its cause by actions such as petitions and demonstrations; the Youth League felt these actions were insufficient to achieve the group's goals and proposed their own 'Programme of Action'. This programme advocated tactics such as boycotts, civil disobedience, strikes, and non-collaboration.
In 1955, Tambo became Secretary General of the ANC after Sisulu was banned by the South African government under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1958, he became Deputy President of the ANC and in 1959 was served with a five-year banning order by the government.
Trevor Manuel
After the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), Manuel was appointed as deputy co-ordinator in the Western Cape Province. At the ANC's first regional conference in 1990 Manuel was elected publicity secretary. At the ANC's 1991 national conference Manuel was elected to the National Executive Committee. In 1992 Manuel became head of the ANC's Department of Economic Planning. Manuel was elected as an ANC Member of Parliament in 1994 and was appointed by President Nelson Mandela as Minister of Trade and Industry; two years later, in 1996, he was moved to the post of Minister of Finance.
Afrikaner Broederbond
The National Party had been established in 1914 by Afrikaner nationalists. It first came to power in 1924. Ten years later, its leader J. B. M. Hertzog and Jan Smuts of the South African Party merged their parties to form the United Party. This angered a contingent of hardline nationalists under D. F. Malan, who broke away to form the ’’Purified National Party’’. By the time World War II broke out, resentment of the British had not subsided. Malan's party opposed South Africa's entry into the war on the side of the British; some of its members wanted to support Nazi Germany. Jan Smuts had commanded the British Army in East Africa in World War I and was amenable to backing the Allies a second time. This was the spark Afrikaner nationalism needed. Herzog, who was in favour of neutrality, quit the United Party when a narrow majority in his cabinet backed Smuts. He started the Afrikaner Party which would amalgamate later with D. F. Malan's ’’Purified National Party’’ to become the force that would take over South African politics for the next 46 years, until majority rule and Nelson Mandela's election in 1994.
John Langalibalele Dube
For a missionary-educated person there was conflict between the newly arrived Western education and African traditional society. However, Dube navigated this social schism with a statesman-like ability, as in his later years, when he was able to win the trust of the Zulu royal family. It is conceivable that Dube would never have been part of the SANC, except that his teaching and discourse on the necessity of unity chimed in with the then-nascent political atmosphere. It is now fashionable for biased historians to mention Dube's conservatism as evidence of his eventual parting of ways with ANC. But, actually, the truth is that the ANC was never a radical movement on the call of such issues as universal suffrage until it was radicalised by the formation of the ANC Youth League in the 1940s.
African National Congress
In co-operation with the South African Communist Party, MK was founded in 1961. MK commenced the military struggle against apartheid with acts of sabotage aimed at the installations of the state, and in the early stages was reluctant to target civilian targets. MK was responsible for the deaths of both civilians and members of the military. Acts committed by MK include the Church Street bombing, the Magoo's Bar bombing and bombing a branch of the Standard Bank in Roodepoort. It was integrated into the South African National Defence Force by 1994.
A. P. Mda
The ANCYL, under Mda’s leadership, started the Programme of Action (PA) at the ANC's Cape provincial office in Port Elizabeth in June 1949. The ANCYL adopted the PA. Xuma's term at the helm of the ANC was coming to an end and Mda and other members of the ANCYL started seeking a replacement who would endorse the PA at the following national ANC conference in 1949. Oliver Tambo went to James Moroka's home in Bantu location to encourage him to stand as a presidential candidate. Moroka was elected as president and the PA was adopted in 1949 as the ANC's guiding document. Mda then stepped down from the ANCYL after Moroka’s appointment. He continued to work behind the scenes to ensure that the ANC remained committed to its nationalist ideals. Mda later grew weary of Moroka's leadership and wrote public letters of disapproval condemning the ANC leadership in the publication “Bantu World”. Mda noticed a “watering down” of African Nationalism by Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu as the new leadership started forming multi-racial alliances including Coloured, Indian and White anti-Apartheid organisations.
Flag of South Africa (1928–1994)
After 1989, F. W. de Klerk became state president and immediately unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and released their leader Nelson Mandela from prison. De Klerk instigated negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa with Mandela's ANC. One of the ANC's demands was that the flag gradually decrease in usage in South African life and that a new flag be created, as black South Africans associated the current one with apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism.
Umkhonto we Sizwe
uMkhonto we Sizwe (abbreviated as MK, , meaning "Spear of the Nation") was the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), co-founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its mission was to fight against the South African government.
African National Congress
The ANC responded to attacks on the rights of black South Africans, as well as calling for strikes, boycotts, and defiance. This led to a later Defiance Campaign in the 1950s, a mass movement of resistance to apartheid. The government tried to stop the ANC by banning party leaders and enacting new laws to stop the ANC, however these measures ultimately proved to be ineffective.
ANC (disambiguation)
ANC most commonly refers to the African National Congress, a revolutionary movement which became the ruling political party in South Africa in the 1994 election.
Thuli Madonsela
Madonsela was, until 2007, an ordinary member of the Pretoria branch of the African National Congress (ANC). During the apartheid era Madonsela served in the ANC and in the United Democratic Front anti-apartheid organisation. She believes that holding political office would not be her "best contribution as a human being". In 1994 she declined the position of ANC MP in South Africa's first post-apartheid Parliament. In January 2014 it was reported that several ANC branches in Gauteng had unsuccessfully nominated her as a candidate to represent the ANC in the National Assembly or one of the provincial legislatures in the 2014 general election. Her spokesperson said she was unaware of the nomination and would not have accepted it.
2019 South African general election
The governing African National Congress (ANC) have held a majority of the seats in the National Assembly since 1994, being re-elected with increasing majorities in 1999 and 2004, and with a slight fall in its majority in 2009 and 2014. The ANC is led by Cyril Ramaphosa, who was elected to a five-year term as President of the African National Congress, beating his rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma by a narrow margin. David Mabuza was elected as Deputy President of the ANC, succeeding Ramaphosa who had run for the position of ANC president.
African Convention
African Convention (, CA) was a political party in French West Africa, originally formed at a meeting in Dakar on 11 January 1957. The CA consisted of the Senegalese Popular Bloc (BPS) of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the African Popular Movement of Nazi Boni in Upper Volta, and the Nigerien Democratic Front (FDN) of Zodi Ikhia in Niger.
Freedom Charter
The document is notable for its demand for and commitment to a non-racial South Africa, and this has remained the platform of the ANC. As a result, ANC members who held pro-African views left the ANC after it adopted the charter, forming the Pan Africanist Congress. The charter also calls for democracy and human rights, land reform, labour rights, and nationalization. After the congress was denounced as treason, the South African government banned the ANC and arrested 156 activists, including Mandela who was imprisoned in 1962. However, the charter continued to circulate in the revolutionary underground and inspired a new generation of young militants in the 1980s.
Music in the movement against apartheid
There was significant resistance to this system, both within and outside South Africa. Opposition outside the country often took the form of boycotts of South Africa. Within the country, resistance ranged from loosely organised groups to tightly knit ones, and from non-violent protests to armed opposition from the African National Congress. Through this entire process, music played a large role in the resistance. Music had been used in South Africa to protest racial segregation before apartheid began in 1948. The ANC had been founded in 1912, and would begin and end its meetings with its anthem "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", an early example of music in the resistance to racial segregation. Another such example was "iLand Act" by R. T. Caluza, which protested the Native Land Act, and was also adopted as an anthem by the ANC. Commentator Michela Vershbow has written that the music of the movement against apartheid and racial segregation "reflected [the] widening gap" between different racial groups and was also an attempt "to communicate across it". Music in South Africa had begun to have explicitly political overtones in the 1930s, as musicians tried to include African elements in their recordings and performances to make political statements. In the 1940s, artists had begun to use music to criticise the state, not directly in response to racial segregation, but as a response to persecution of artists. Artists did not see their music as being directly political: Miriam Makeba would state "people say I sing politics, but what I sing is not politics, it is the truth".
Harry Nkumbula
Opposition to Nkumbula's allegedly autocratic leadership of the ANC eventually resulted in a split with Kaunda, who went on to form the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC) in October 1958. ZANC was banned in March 1959 and in June Kaunda was sentenced to nine months imprisonment. While Kaunda was still in prison, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) was formed late in 1959. Once he came out of prison, Kaunda took over the presidency of UNIP, which became better organized and more militant than Nkumbula's ANC. Due to this, UNIP rapidly took the leading position in the struggle for independence, eclipsing the ANC.
Congress of the People (South African political party)
The Congress of the People (COPE) is a South African political party formed in 2008 by former members of the African National Congress (ANC). The party was founded by former ANC members Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George to contest the 2009 general election. The party was announced following a national convention held in Sandton on 1 November 2008, and was founded at a congress held in Bloemfontein on 16 December 2008. The name echoes the 1955 Congress of the People at which the Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC and other parties, a name strongly contested by the ANC in a legal move dismissed by the Pretoria High Court.
National People's Party (South Africa)
The National People's Party (or National Peoples Party) is a political party registered on a national level with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa. It came into existence when Badih Chaaban, a member of the Cape Town City Council crossed the floor from the Africa Muslim Party (AMP) in an attempt to wrest control of the city council from the Democratic Alliance-led multi-party coalition. The party was set up by Chaaban shortly before the floor crossing period in 2007 with the help of David Sasman, its interim leader. It should not be confused with the National People's Party, renamed the Minority Front, led by Amichand Rajbansi during the apartheid era.
National Party (South Africa)
On 31 May 1961, South Africa became a republic. The date was a significant one in Afrikaner history, as it heralded the anniversary of a number of historical events, the 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the Anglo-Boer War; South Africa's becoming a union in 1910; and the first hoisting of the Union flag in 1928. The Afrikaner republican dream had finally come to reality.
Democratic Alliance (South Africa)
The DP would establish itself as a more effective party of opposition, however, and eventually rose from relative obscurity and ascended to the status of official opposition in 1999 under the leadership of Tony Leon, mainly by taking votes from the New National Party, the renamed version of the NP. The party also became kingmakers in the Western Cape province, where it formed a coalition government with the NNP. With a fractured national opposition standing against an increasingly dominant governing party, there was a perceived need to better challenge the ANC. To this end, the DP reached a merger agreement with the NNP and the much smaller Federal Alliance (FA) in 2000. Together they formed the Democratic Alliance. The merger was ultimately aborted, with both the NNP and FA leaving the DA. Many former NNP members remained, however, and the new name was kept.
KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal is the birthplace of many notable figures in South Africa's history, such as Albert Luthuli, the first non-white and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1960); Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the founder of the African National Congress (ANC) and South Africa's first black lawyer; John Langalibalele Dube, the ANC's founding president; Harry Gwala, ANC member and anti-apartheid activist; Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the founder of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP); Anton Lembede, the founding president of the ANC Youth League; Jacob Zuma, the former President of South Africa; and Bhambatha, a 19th-century Zulu chief who became an anti-apartheid icon.
Thomas Nkobi
After the ANC was in legalised in 1990 he returned to South Africa. There he oversaw the ANCs budget for South Africa's first democratic election, which brought the ANC to power. Thomas Nkobi was re-elected as Treasurer General in party elections in 1991 and also elected as Member of Parliament, member of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) and member of the ANC's National Working Committee (NWC); one of several elders with moderate views who retained leadership positions.
New National Party (South Africa)
The New National Party (NNP) was a South African political party formed in 1997 as the successor to the National Party, which ruled the country from 1948 to 1994. The name change was an attempt to distance itself from its apartheid past, and reinvent itself as a moderate, mainstream conservative and non-racist federal party. The attempt was largely unsuccessful, and in 2005 the New National Party voted to disband itself.
Nelson Mandela
In May 1990, Mandela led a multiracial ANC delegation into preliminary negotiations with a government delegation of 11 Afrikaner men. Mandela impressed them with his discussions of Afrikaner history, and the negotiations led to the Groot Schuur Minute, in which the government lifted the state of emergency. In August, Mandela—recognising the ANC's severe military disadvantage—offered a ceasefire, the Pretoria Minute, for which he was widely criticised by MK activists. He spent much time trying to unify and build the ANC, appearing at a Johannesburg conference in December attended by 1600 delegates, many of whom found him more moderate than expected. At the ANC's July 1991 national conference in Durban, Mandela admitted that the party had faults and announced his aim to build a "strong and well-oiled task force" for securing majority rule. At the conference, he was elected ANC President, replacing the ailing Tambo, and a 50-strong multiracial, mixed gendered national executive was elected.
Gandhism
Gandhi's early life work in South Africa between the years 1910 and 1915, for the improved rights of Indian residents living under the white minority South African government inspired the later work of the African National Congress (ANC). From the 1950s, the ANC organised non-violent civil disobedience akin to the campaign advanced by the Indian National Congress under the inspiration of Gandhi between the 1920s and 1940s. ANC activists braved the harsh tactics of the police to protest against the oppressive South African government. Many, especially Mandela, languished for decades in jail, while the world outside was divided in its effort to remove apartheid. Steve Biko, perhaps the most vocal adherent to non-violent civil resistance, was allegedly murdered in 1977 by agents of the government.
When the first universal, free elections were held in South Africa in 1994, the ANC was elected and Mandela became president. Mandela made a special visit to India and publicly honoured Gandhi as the man who inspired the freedom struggle of black South Africans. Statues of Gandhi have been erected in Natal, Pretoria and Johannesburg.
Zephania Mothopeng
Mothopeng began his struggle against apartheid in 1943 as a founding member of the African National Congress Youth League. He left the African National Congress (ANC) because of the rise of the Freedom Charter, a multiracial philosophy. He left the ANC with Robert Sobukwe in 1959 and became a founding member of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). After forming the PAC, he was at the forefront of their Positive Action campaign against pass laws. The campaign was defined by Pan Africanists as the application of non-violent mass action in the form of strikes, boycotts and non-collaboration with the oppressive authorities.
National Conservative Action
The ANC lost its legal status together with 15 other parties in 2005.
Sophia Williams-De Bruyn
By 1963, her husband was forced into exile in Lusaka, Zambia where he was appointed Chairman of the Regional Political Committee of the ANC. . She joined him six years later and went on to complete her studies and obtain her teacher diploma by 1977, all while working as an administrator for the ANC in Lusaka. She was one of the founder members of the ANC education council formed in 1980. The council set the curriculum for the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College. The college was established in 1978 by the exiled African National Congress (ANC) in Mazimbu, Tanzania.
Mainza Chona
Chona returned to Northern Rhodesia in December 1958. During his absence from Northern Rhodesia, politics had moved forward on several fronts. The White-dominated Central African Federation (CAF) had been established on 1 August 1953, in spite of feeble opposition from the Black population through the African National Congress (ANC), led by Nkumbula and Kaunda. The two leaders drifted apart as Nkumbula became increasingly influenced by White liberals and was seen as being willing to compromise on the issue of Black majority rule. Eventually Kaunda broke from the ANC in October 1958 and formed the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC), with Nkumbula remaining as leader of the ANC. Chona had been a member of ANC while in London and he had not made a choice between the two factions. Due to ZANC's militancy and its unwillingness to compromise on the issue of "independence now", Kaunda and other leaders of the new party were detained by the CAF authorities, and ZANC was banned in March 1959. Chona decided to take active part in the operations of the still-legal ANC, but his challenge to Nkumbula's cautious leadership of the party resulted in a further split.
Martin Legassick
In the 1970s, Legassick became involved in the independent left. In 1979, together with Paula Ensor, Dave Hemson and Rob Petersen, he was suspended from the African National Congress for allegedly forming a faction. They were involved in the exiled African National Congress. They regarded their suspension as undemocratic and launched the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC. Legassick left academia in 1981 to become a full-time anti-apartheid activist, arguing for the transformation of the African National Congress into a revolutionary working class movement, and a socialist solution to South Africa's national and social questions. He was on the editorial committee of the MWT journal, "Inqaba yaBasebenzi", and the MWT newspaper, "Congress Militant". He was expelled by the ANC in 1985.
Potlako Leballo
He was active in the African National Congress Youth League until he and other radical leaders including Robert Sobukwe were expelled from the ANC and went on to form the PAC, a more radical Africanist movement. He held the distinction of having successfully nominated Chief Albert Lutuli (1952) and Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe (1959) to the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) respectively. He stated later (1984) than he believed that leaving the ANC (although encouraged by Kwame Nkrumah and the Basuto leader Ntsu Mokhehle) was a mistake and that his "Africanists" should have fought for control of the party rather than forming a new one. He was elected Secretary General of the PAC and within a year the new party was seriously challenging the ANC.
Democratic Alliance (South Africa)
The Democratic Alliance (Afrikaans: Demokratiese Alliansie) (DA) is a South African political party and the official opposition to the governing African National Congress (ANC). The present leader is Mmusi Maimane, who succeeded former Mayor of Cape Town and Premier of the Western Cape Helen Zille on 10 May 2015. The party is broadly centrist, and has been attributed both centre-left and centre-right policies. It is a member of the Liberal International and the Africa Liberal Network. The DA traces its roots to the founding of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party in 1959, with many mergers and name changes between that time and the present. The party adopted its current name on 24 June of the year 2000.
Zola Skweyiya
Until 1985, he was the ANC's representative at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) before being recalled to Lusaka to set up the ANC's Legal and Constitutional Department. In 1986, he was deputy chair of the ANC's constitutional committee with members such as Jack Simons, Kader Asmal and Albie Sachs. This committee would develop the ANC constitutional guidelines that would eventually be used after the ANC's unbanning in 1990, during negotiations that would lead to the first elections in which citizens of all races voted in 1994 and a South African Constitution. During 1986 until 1988 he attempted to investigate the conditions of detention of ANC members by the ANC security wing of the Department of National Intelligence and Security.
African National Congress
In December 1991 the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) was held with the aim of establishing an interim government. However, a few months later in June 1992 the Boipatong massacre occurred and all negotiations crumbled as the ANC pulled out. After this negotiations proceeded between two agents, Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC, and Roelf Meyer of the National Party. In over 40 sessions the two men discussed and negotiated over many issues including the nature of the future political system, the fate of over 40,000 government employees and if/how the country would be divided. The result of these negotiations was an interim constitution that meant the transition from apartheid to democracy was a constitutional continuation and that the rule of law and state sovereignty remained intact during the transition, which was vital for stability within the country. A date was set for the first democratic elections on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62.5% of the votes and has been in power ever since.
Bloemfontein anti-pass campaign
Under the organisation’s constitution, women were not allowed to participate as full members of the South African Native National Convention (SANNC), now known as the African National Congress (ANC), when it was founded in 1912. As auxiliary members, they had no voting rights but participated collectively. This led to the formal launch of the Bantu Women’s League under the leadership of Charlotte Maxeke in 1913. The organisation, which mainly consisted of educated middle-class Black women, was established to challenge the pass laws that had been controlling the movement of Black women in the province. The Orange Free State Native, Coloured Women's Association (led by Catharina Symmons and Katie Louw) and the African People's Organisation (a predominately Coloured organisation based in the Western Cape) were also among the organisations who actively fought against the racial restrictions.
Zacharias Richard Mahabane
When his term as ANC President ended in 1940 he became the official Chaplain to the ANC and was elected as a Lifelong Honorary President of the ANC in 1943.. During the 1940’s he concentrated more on the AAC, and on the Non-European Unity Movement, of which he became President at its foundation in 1945, remaining in that position until 1956 when he resigned. In the 1940’s he concentrated on religious organizations, this included the Inter-Denominational African Minister’s Federation that was founded in 1945. He became its President in 1963.
Apartheid
The ANC won 62.65 percent of the vote, less than the 66.7 percent that would have allowed it to rewrite the constitution. 252 of the 400 seats went to members of the African National Congress. The NP captured most of the white and Coloured votes and became the official opposition party. As well as deciding the national government, the election decided the provincial governments, and the ANC won in seven of the nine provinces, with the NP winning in the Western Cape and the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal. On 10 May 1994, Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's president. The Government of National Unity was established, its cabinet made up of 12 ANC representatives, six from the NP, and three from the IFP. Thabo Mbeki and de Klerk were made deputy presidents.
Lionel Bernstein
In 1954, the ANC called together its allies to a joint meeting in Natal. This included the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (COD), the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), and the Coloured Peoples’ Congress. It was at this historic meeting that it was decided to convene a Congress of the People where a Freedom Charter would be adopted.
National People's Party (South Africa, 1981)
The National People's Party was a South African political party founded in 1981 by Amichand Rajbansi. It participated in political structures established for Indian South Africans during the apartheid era: first the South African Indian Council, and then the House of Delegates in the Tricameral Parliament.
ANC Sports
ANC was founded in 1997 by Jerry Cifarelli, current CEO, and Alan N. Cohen, former co-owner of the Boston Celtics.
Politics of South Africa
Since the end of apartheid in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) has dominated South Africa's politics. The ANC is the ruling party in the national legislature, as well as in eight of the nine provinces (Western Cape is governed by the Democratic Alliance). The ANC received 62.15% of the vote during the 2014 general election. It had received 62.9%
of the popular vote in the 2011 municipal election. The main challenger to the ANC's rule is the Democratic Alliance, led by Mmusi Maimane (previously by Helen Zille), which received 22.23% of the vote in the 2014 election. Other major political parties represented in Parliament include the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Inkatha Freedom Party, which mainly represents Zulu voters. The formerly dominant New National Party, which both introduced and ended apartheid through its predecessor the National Party, disbanded in 2005 to merge with the ANC. Jacob Zuma served as President of South Africa since May 9, 2009 until his resignation in February 2018. Zuma was replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa. The country's next general election will be held in 2019.
History of the African National Congress
Jacob Zuma was acquitted of the rape charges, and was reinstated as Deputy President of the organisation. A battle for leadership of the ANC ensued, culminating at the party's national conference in Polokwane (16–20 December 2007), where both Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki were nominated for the position of president. On 18 December 2007, Jacob Zuma was elected President of the ANC at the ANC conference in Polokwane. Jacob Zuma was replaced as ANC president by Cyril Ramaphosa at the 2017 ANC national conference.
African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is the Republic of South Africa's governing political party. It has been the ruling party of post-apartheid South Africa on the national level, beginning with the election of Nelson Mandela in the 1994 election. Today, the ANC remains the dominant political party in South Africa, winning every election since 1994. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent President of South Africa, has served as leader of the ANC since 18 December 2017.
Vrededorp, Gauteng
In 1908 the Indigency Commission started to criticize the living conditions of blacks in and around Johannesburg. This triggered a series of inter-related events. 1909 - the Johannesburg Municipal Commission suggested to make surveyed land available to "natives and other non Europeans". 1910 - Despite strong objections from the black community that they will be excluded from constitutional proceedings, the Union of South-Africa comes into being. Shortly after, in 1911, the first of many labour disputes happened. The next to follow was the founding of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in 1912, which later changed its name to African National Congress (ANC). By 1914 the situation deteriorated to such an extent that the Union Government had to place Johannesburg under Martial Law.
Carme Forcadell
On April 22, 2012 the members of the Executive Board of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) chose Forcadell as president of the ANC. She was joined by Carles Castellanos as Vice president and Jordi Martínez as Secretary. During the summer of 2012, the ANC organized marches for independence all over Catalonia. As president of the ANC, Forcadell was one of the leading voices behind the organization of the 2012 "Catalonia, Next State in Europe" rallies and the Catalan Way in 2013. On May 17, 2014, she was reelected president of the ANC with 97% of the votes. Forcadell received the 2014 Joan Blanca Prize from the city of Perpignan in recognition of her commitment to the defense of Catalan culture and identity.
Nelson Mandela
With the election set for 27 April 1994, the ANC began campaigning, opening 100 election offices and orchestrating People's Forums across the country at which Mandela could appear, as a popular figure with great status among black South Africans. The ANC campaigned on a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) to build a million houses in five years, introduce universal free education and extend access to water and electricity. The party's slogan was "a better life for all", although it was not explained how this development would be funded. With the exception of the "Weekly Mail" and the "New Nation", South Africa's press opposed Mandela's election, fearing continued ethnic strife, instead supporting the National or Democratic Party. Mandela devoted much time to fundraising for the ANC, touring North America, Europe and Asia to meet wealthy donors, including former supporters of the apartheid regime. He also urged a reduction in the voting age from 18 to 14; rejected by the ANC, this policy became the subject of ridicule.
Conservative Party (South Africa)
It was formed in 1982 by 23 MPs from the ruling National Party who opposed Prime Minister PW Botha's reforms to apartheid and power sharing proposals, which they saw as a threat to white minority rule, and the racial segregation known as Separate Development. It was led by Andries Treurnicht, a former Dutch Reformed Church minister popularly known as 'Doctor No'. The CP's English-language programme booklets from 1987-89 stated that the party was established "to continue the policy of self-determination after the [NP] government had exchanged self-determination" (something the CP described as an "infallible policy"), for power-sharing. It drew support from white South Africans, mostly Afrikaners in the rural heartlands of South Africa. All members of the new party that belonged to the Afrikaner Broederbond had to leave that organization as they were not welcome anymore.
Thabo Mbeki
Between 1990 and 1994, the ANC began preparing for the first democratic elections. It was an adjustment period and Mbeki played a crucial role in transforming the ANC into a legal political organisation. In 1991, the ANC was able to hold its first legal conference in the country after 30 years of being banned. The party now had the task of finding a middle ground for discussion between all the various factions: the returning exiles, the long-term prisoners and those who had stayed behind to lead the struggle. Mbeki was chosen as national chair while Cyril Ramaphosa was elected secretary general and the ANC's chief negotiator at the multiparty talks. Mbeki had up to this point been handling much of the diplomatic talks with the apartheid regime, and given his diplomatic experience and the level of bargaining that was expected, it came as a surprise that Mbeki was sidelined in favour of Ramaphosa.
History of the African National Congress
The ANC first called for an academic boycott of South Africa in protest of its Apartheid policies in 1958 in Ghana. The call was repeated the following year in London.
Service Medal in Gold
Umkhonto we Sizwe, abbreviated as MK, "Spear of the Nation" in [isiXhosa language|Xhosa]], was the para-military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). It was established on 16 December 1961 to wage an armed "struggle" against the Nationalist government inside South Africa. On 27 April 1994, Umkhonto we Sizwe was amalgamated with six other military forces into the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
History of the African National Congress
By the 1980s, the African National Congress' attacks, coupled with international pressure and internal dissent, increased in South Africa. The ANC received financial and tactical support from the USSR, which orchestrated military involvement with surrogate Cuban forces through Angola. However, the fall of the USSR after 1991 brought an end to its funding of the ANC and also changed the attitude of some Western governments that had previously supported the Apartheid regime as an ally against communism. The South African government found itself under increasing internal and external pressure, and this, together with a more conciliatory tone from the ANC, resulted in a change in the political landscape. State President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC and other banned organisations on 2 February 1990, and began peace talks for a negotiated settlement to end apartheid.
Accord on Afrikaner self-determination
In late 1993 the African National Congress and the newly established Afrikaner Volksfront - which was an umbrella organisation of several right-wing Afrikaner organisations - negotiated about a bantustan (also called volkstaat) for Afrikaners around Pretoria. The ANC agreed to negotiate because she is frightened that conservatives in the (white) South African Defence Force would commit a "coup d'état" to maintain white rule in South Africa. Although the ANC and the Afrikaner Volksfront come to an agreement, the far-right in the Afrikaner Volksfront refuse to sign the agreement.
Harry Nkumbula
During the last days of the Federation, the ANC had been largely confined to Nkumbula's regional base in the southern province. Although the party won seats in Western Province during the general elections of 1968, Nkumbula had little to offer the Zambian public. When Kaunda moved to convert Zambia into a one-party state, Nkumbula capitulated. He signed a document called the Choma Declaration on 27 June 1973 and announced that he was joining UNIP. The ANC ceased to exist after the dissolution of parliament in October 1973. Some have alleged that Kaunda "bought off" Nkumbula by offering him an emerald mine. However, the fact that the emerald mine did not enter his possession until 1975 suggests that this allegation is false. Nkumbula's last prominent political action was an ill-fated attempt, together with Simon Kapwepwe, to stand against Kaunda for Zambia's one-party presidential nomination in 1978. Both Nkumbula and Kapwepwe were outmaneuvered by Kaunda, who secured the nomination while the two of them disappeared from Zambia's political scene.
Southern Rhodesia African National Congress
The Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) was a political party active between 1957–1959 in Southern Rhodesia (now modern-day Zimbabwe). Committed to the promotion of indigenous African welfare, it was the first fully fledged black nationalist organisation in the country. While short-lived—it was outlawed by the predominantly white minority government in 1959—it marked the beginning of political action towards black majority rule in Southern Rhodesia, and was the original incarnation of the National Democratic Party (NDP); the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU); the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU); and the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), which has governed Zimbabwe continuously since 1980. Many political figures who later became prominent, including Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, were members of the SRANC.
African National Congress
By 1927, J.T. Gumede (president of the ANC) proposed co-operation with the Communists in a bid to revitalise the organisation, but he was voted out of power in the 1930s. This led to the ANC becoming largely ineffectual and inactive, until the mid-1940s when the ANC was remodelled as a mass movement.
Mouvement d'Action Civique
The origins of the MAC lay in the 1960 independence of the Belgian Congo and the resulting Congo Crisis which saw the vast majority of white colonials, who were largely French-speaking, return to Belgium. From within this group a number of extremist organisation began to grow up, most notably the "Comité d'Action et de Défence des Belges d'Afrique" (CADBA or Committee for Action and the Defence of African Belgians), which had worked against the decolonization of the Belgian Congo. When this aim was not forthcoming (and became increasingly undesirable due to the trouble in Congo and the return of most Belgians) CADBA reinvented itself as the MAC, becoming more of an extremist white armed group. A minor movement, it worked with Jeune Europe domestically, as well as the British Union Movement and the Organisation armée secrète in France and was a founder member of the National Party of Europe.
James Moroka
Moroka was elected as the president of the ANC by the support of the African National Congress Youth League and its leaders Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela in December 1949. During Moroka's presidency, the ANC started to implement more militant tactics in fighting the country's Apartheid regime.
History of South Africa
The ANC had risen to power on the strength of a socialist agenda embodied in a Freedom Charter, which was intended to form the basis of ANC social, economic and political policies. The Charter decreed that "the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people". ANC icon Nelson Mandela, asserted in a statement released on 25 January 1990: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable." But, after the ANC's electoral victory in 1994, the eradication of mass poverty through nationalisation was never implemented. The ANC-led government, in a historic reversal of policy, adopted neoliberalism instead. A wealth tax on the super-rich to fund developmental projects was set aside, while domestic and international corporations, enriched by apartheid, were excused from any financial reparations. Large corporations were allowed to shift their main listings abroad. According to a leading South African economics expert, the government's concessions to big business represented "treacherous decisions that [will] haunt South Africa for generations to come".
Merit Medal in Bronze
Umkhonto we Sizwe, abbreviated as MK, "Spear of the Nation" in Zulu, was the para-military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). It was established on 16 December 1961 to wage an armed "struggle" against the Nationalist government inside South Africa. On 27 April 1994, Umkhonto we Sizwe was amalgamated with six other military forces into the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
South African Communist Party
The Communist Party of South Africa was founded in 1921 by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of Willam H. Andrews. It first came to prominence during the Rand Revolt, a strike by white miners in 1922. The large mining concerns, facing labour shortages and wage pressures, had announced their intention of engaging blacks in semi-skilled and some higher level jobs at low wage rates, compared to their white counterparts who enjoyed the monopoly of higher and well-paying occupations. The CPSA supported the strike as the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class but it distanced itself from racist slogans associated with the strike (See the Public Statement on the strike, as a primary authority, issued by the CPSA on the accasion of the strike in 1922. The statement is accessible in the book "South African Communists Speak" - containing original - Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party, 1915-1980, published by Inkululeko, 1981). The Party said in the statement a white South Africa was impossible, and that workers had to organise and unite regardless of their race to fight for a non-racial South Africa and better conditions for all workers. In 1928, the Communist International adopted a resolution for the CPSA to adopt the "Native Republic" thesis which stipulated that South Africa was a country belonging to the Natives, that is, the Blacks. The resolution was influenced by a delegation from South Africa. James la Guma, the Party Chairperson from Cape Town, had met with the leadership of the Communist International (Dr Raymond van Diemel, ""I have seen the new Jerusalem": Revisiting and re-conceptualising Josiah T. Gumede and Jimmy La Guma’s USSR visit of 1927" (2001)). The Party thus reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organising black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1,600 of the party's 1,750 members were Black. During this period, the party has been accused of dismissing competing attempts at multiracial revolutionary organisations, especially multiracial union organising by the syndicalists, and using revisionist history to claim that the party and its Native Republic policy was the only viable route to African liberation. Despite this, in 1929: the party adopted a "strategic line" which held that, "The most direct line of advance to socialism runs through the mass struggle for majority rule". By 1948, the Communist Party had officially abandoned the Native Republic policy.
Thomas Mtobi Mapikela
The 12-roomed Mapikela House is situated on stand number 22093 in Batho Location in Bloemfontein. It is situated at the corner of Community and Makgothi Streets. This house became the meeting place for the ANC as well as the community. On the rising of the step leading to the front door of the house, partially hidden by a second step, is the inscription ‘Ulundi-Kaya’ which literally means the ‘horizon house’. For a while, it was believed that Mapikela House was the founding venue of the ANC. However, research has concluded that this was not so. As the house in Batho was only built several years after the founding of the ANC, it is decidedly not the founding venue of the ANC. The house was built between 1923 and 1926.
Duma Nokwe
During this period, Nokwe continued his political work, notwithstanding the trial, banning orders, frequent arrests on trivial charges and on one occasion a violent police assault. He was elected secretary general of the ANC in 1958 at its 46th annual conference in Durban, and went on to oversee a series of campaigns and demonstrations throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, contributing to the growth of the ANC's mass membership and building its significance as the key organisation in the liberation movement.
All People's Congress
The APC party was founded in 1960 by a breakaway group from the Sierra Leone People's Party that vehemently opposed elections before independence and instead supported independence before elections. The APC governed the country from 1968 to 1992 and became the ruling party again in 2007 after the party presidential candidate Ernest Bai Koroma won the 2007 presidential election, he contested and won the 2012 elections also.
National Action (South Africa)
The National Action (more commonly known by its Afrikaans name, "Nasionale Aksie") was a short-lived South African political party formed by Cassie Aucamp when he left the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (AEB) in the 2003 floor-crossing window. The AEB, along with other Afrikaner parties, was merging into the Freedom Front Plus to contest the 2004 elections but the National Action, claiming to support Afrikaner interests, remained separate, and competed in the 2004 elections. It won no seats in the National Assembly of South Africa or any of the provincial legislatures. It did not contest the 2009 elections.
Raymond Mhlaba
Mhlaba started working at a laundry in Port Elizabeth after leaving school in 1942. The horrendous conditions at the laundry converted him to a trade unionist and he became the leader of Non European Laundry Workers Union in 1943. In 1943, he joined the South African Communist Party, serving as the party's district secretary from 1946 until the party was banned in 1950. In 1944, he became a member of the African National Congress. From 1944 Mhlaba maintained dual membership of the ANC and the SACP. He rose through the ANC ranks becoming the chairman of the Port Elizabeth branch of the ANC from 1947 to 1953, and then elected to the Cape Executive committee. Mhlaba was the first to be arrested for disobeying apartheid laws during the nationwide Defiance Campaign of 1952. The campaign was launched in Port Elizabeth when Mhlaba led a group of volunteers singing freedom songs through the "Whites Only" entrance of the New Brighton Railway Station. This action earned him the Xhosa nickname "Vulindlela" or "he who opens the way." That same year, Mhlaba was charged under South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act. Although his political activities continued, he was barred from attending meetings or gatherings.
After the ANC was banned on 8 April under the Unlawful Organisations Act, the party took up the armed struggle forming its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mhlaba was one of its first recruits and was sent to China for military training. Before leaving he assisted Mandela in writing the Umkhonto constitution. In 1962, Mhlaba returned to South Africa, becoming a commander of the MK after Nelson Mandela's arrest.
Accord on Afrikaner self-determination
In the same time about one million Afrikaners refused to accept a new state structure in which Afrikaners would lose their political power. This could lead to permanent public unrest after the elections. Especially in the last weeks before the general election, the ANC was afraid of an "coup d'état" by conservative Afrikaners. At that time, the National Party refused to sign the final agreements with the ANC, because there was no agreement on amnesty for the members of the state security services of the Apartheid government. Therefore, the ANC continued to negotiate with conservative Afrikaners about a home land or volkstaat for Afrikaners. After the rupture of the Afrikaner Volksfront the ANC continued these talks with the Freedom Front. The ANC, Freedom Front and the NP-led government of South Africa came to an agreement on the 23rd of April 1994.