As a resistance movement, the ANC was predated by a number
of black lumpenproletariat resistance movements, among them Umkosi Wezintaba,
formed in South Africa between 1890 and 1920.[1]
The ANC was formed on 8 January 1912 by John Dube, Pixley ka
Isaka Seme and Sol Plaatje along with chiefs, people's representatives, and
church organizations, and other prominent individuals to bring all Africans
together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms, the ANC 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.
The formation of the ANC Youth League in 1944 by Anton
Lembede heralded a new generation committed to building non-violent mass action
against the legal underpinnings of the white minority's supremacy.
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 at
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.[2] The ANC also worked with the
Natal Indian Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress.
Opposition to
Apartheid
The return of an Afrikaner-led National Party government by
the overwhelmingly white electorate in 1948 signaled the advent of the policy
of Apartheid. During the 1950s, non-whites were removed from electoral rolls, residence
and mobility laws were tightened and political activities restricted.
The successful increase of awareness outside of South Africa
achieved in the Indians' movement under the leadership of Gandhi inspired
blacks in South Africa to resist the racism and inequality that they, and all
other non-whites, were experiencing. The two racial groups began working
together, forcing themselves to accept one another and bash their own personal
prejudices against one another. This required effort: education supporting the
other race and their achievements, and constantly reminding themselves that
they needed one another to combat the oppression they were facing. They began
collaborating, even jointly campaigning for their struggle to be managed by the
United Nations (although in this time, western society was not practising
equality for all people either).[3]
The ANC also found its role model in the initial movement by
the Indian political parties. They realized that they would need a fervent
leader, like Gandhi was for the Indians, who was, in the words of Nelson
Mandela, "willing to violate the law and if necessary go to prison for
their beliefs as Gandhi had". In 1949 the ANC saw a jump in their
membership, which previously lingered around five-thousand, and began to
establish a firm presence in South African society.[3]
In June 1952, the ANC joined with other anti-Apartheid
organizations in a Defiance Campaign against the restriction of political,
labour and residential rights, during which protesters deliberately violated
oppressive laws, following the example of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance
in KwaZulu-Natal and in India. The campaign was called off in April 1953 after
new laws prohibiting protest meetings were passed.
In June 1955 the Congress of the People, organised by the
ANC and Indian, Coloured and White organizations at Kliptown near Johannesburg,
adopted the Freedom Charter, henceforth the fundamental document of the
anti-Apartheid struggle with its demand for equal rights for all regardless of race.
As opposition to the regime's policies continued, 156 leading members of the
ANC and allied organisations were arrested in 1956; the resulting "Treason
Trial" ended with their acquittal five years later.
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.[4]
In 1959 a number of members broke away from the ANC because
they objected to the ANC's reorientation from African nationalist policies.
They formed the rival Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), led by Robert Sobukwe.
Protest and
banning
The ANC planned a campaign against the Pass Laws, which
required blacks to carry an identity card at all times to justify their
presence in White areas, to begin on 31 March 1960. The PAC pre-empted the ANC
by holding unarmed protests 10 days earlier, during which 69 protesters were
killed and 180 injured by police fire in what became known as the Sharpeville
massacre.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, both organisations were
banned from political activity. International opposition to the regime
increased throughout the 1950s and 1960s, fueled by the growing number of newly
independent nations, the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and the civil
rights movement in the United States. In 1960, the leader of the ANC, Albert
Luthuli, won the Nobel Peace Prize, a feat that would be repeated in 1993 by
the next leader of the ANC, Nelson Mandela, and F.W. de Klerk jointly, for
their actions in helping to negotiate peaceful transition after Mandela's
release from prison, which was a great step towards better rights for blacks.
Violent political
resistance
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 after the Rivonia Trial.
During the 1970s and 1980s the ANC leadership in exile under
Oliver Tambo made the decision to target Apartheid government leadership,
command and control, secret police, and military-industrial complex assets and personnel
in decapitation strikes, targeted killings, and guerilla actions such as bomb
explosions in facilities frequented by military and government personnel. A
number of civilians were also killed in these attacks. Examples of these
include the Amanzimtoti bombing,[5] the Sterland bomb in Pretoria,[6] the Wimpy
bomb in Pretoria,[7] the Juicy Lucy bomb in Pretoria[6] and the Magoo's bar
bombing in Durban.[8] ANC acts of sabotage aimed at government institutions
included the bombing of the Johannesburg Magistrates Court, the attack on the
Koeberg nuclear power station, the rocket attack on Voortrekkerhoogte in
Pretoria, and the 1983 Church Street bombing in Pretoria, which killed 16 and
wounded 130.
The ANC was classified as a terrorist [9] organisation by
the South African government and by some Western countries including the United
States of America and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the ANC had a London
office from 1978 to 1994 at 28 Penton Street in Islington, north London, now
marked with a plaque. [10]
During this period, the South African military engaged in a
number of raids and bombings on ANC bases in Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho and
Swaziland. Dulcie September, a member of the ANC who was investigating the arms
trade between France and South Africa was assassinated in Paris in 1988. In the
ANC's training camps, the ANC faced allegations that dissident members faced
torture, detention without trial and even execution in ANC prison
camps.[11][12] In South Africa, the campaign to make the townships
"ungovernable" led to kangaroo courts and mob executions of opponents
and collaborators, often by necklacing.[13][14]
There was violence between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom
Party. For example between 1985 and 1989, 5,000 civilians were killed in fighting
between the two parties.[15] Massacres of each other's supporters include the
Shell House massacre and the Boipatong massacre.
As the years progressed, the African National Congreses
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.
multiracial elections--but do so in a landslide. In that
election, the ANC, as the dominant partner in a tripartite alliance with the
South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions,
won a comprehensive victory, and Nelson Mandela was elected the first black
President of South Africa.
In Kwa-Zulu Natal, the ANC maintained an uneasy coalition
with the Inkatha Freedom Party after neither party won a majority in the 1994
and 1999 provincial elections.
In 2004 the party contested national elections in voluntary
coalition with the New National Party (NNP), which it effectively absorbed
following the NNP's dissolution in 2005.
After the 1994 and 1999 elections it ruled seven of the nine
provinces, with Kwa-Zulu Natal under the IFP and the Western Cape Province
under the NNP. As of 2004, it gained both the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal
after a combination of the NNP's electoral base being eroded by the DA and a
poor showing by the IFP.
Signs of strain
By 2001 the tripartite alliance between the ANC, COSATU and
SACP began showing signs of strain as the ANC moved to more liberal economic
policies than its alliance partners were comfortable with. The focus for
dissent was the GEAR program, an initialism for "Growth, Employment and Redistribution."
In late 2004 this was again thrown into sharp relief by
Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU protesting the ANC's policy of "quiet
diplomacy" towards the worsening conditions in Zimbabwe, as well as Black
Economic Empowerment, which he complained benefits a favoured few in the black
elite and not the masses.
As of 2005 the alliance was facing a crisis as Jacob Zuma,
who was fired from his position as Deputy President of South Africa by Thabo
Mbeki, faced corruption charges. Complicating the situation was the fact that
Zuma remained Deputy President of the ANC, and maintained a strong following
amongst many ANC supporters, and the ANC's alliance partners.[16] In October
2005, top officials in the National Intelligence Agency, who were Zuma
supporters, were suspended for illegally spying on an Mbeki supporter, Saki
Macozoma, amid allegations that ANC supporters were using their positions
within organs of state to spy on, and discredit each other.[17] In December
2005, Zuma was charged with rape [18] and his position as Deputy President of
the ANC was suspended.[19]
Jacob Zuma was acquitted of the rape charges, and was
reinstated as Deputy President of the organisation. A battle for leadership of
the ANC followed, 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[20]
The ANC also faced (sometimes violent) protests in townships
over perceived poor service delivery, as well as internal disputes, as local
government elections approached in 2006.[21][22]
The ANC "WaBenzi" are now commonly considered to
be more concerned with the spoils of power (such as BMWs, Whisky & Italian
Clothes) than they are with furthering the development of the people.
Leaders of the ANC[edit]
Presidents of the
ANC
1912 - 1917 John Langalibalele Dube (1871–1946)
1917 - 1924 Sefako Mapogo Makgatho (1861–1951)
1924 - 1927 Zacharias Richard Mahabane (1881–1970)
1927 - 1930 Josiah Tshangana Gumede (1870–1947)
1930 - 1936 Pixley ka Isaka Seme (1882–1951)
1937 - 1940 Zacharias Richard Mahabane (1881-1971)
1940 - 1949 Alfred Bitini Xuma (1890–1962)
1949 - 1952 James Sebe Moroka (1891-1985)
1952 - 1967 Albert John Lutuli (1898–1967)
1967 - 1991 Oliver Reginald Tambo (1917–1993)
1991 - 1997 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013)
1997 - 2007 Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (1942-)
2007–present Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (1942-)
Deputy Presidents
of the ANC
1952 - 1958 Nelson Mandela
1958 - 1985 Oliver Tambo
1985 - 1991 Nelson Mandela
1991 - 1994 Walter Sisulu
1994 - 1997 Thabo Mbeki
1997 - 2007 Jacob Zuma
2007 – 2012 Kgalema Motlanthe
2012 - incumbent Cyril Ramaphosa
Secretaries-General
of the ANC
(1912–1915) Sol Plaatje
(1915–1917) R. V. Selope Thema
(1917–1919) Saul Msane
(1919–1923) H. L. Bud M'belle
(1923–1927) T. D. Mweli Skota
(1927–1930) E. J. Khaile
(1930–1936) Elijah Mdolomba
(1936–1949) James Arthur Calata
(1949–1955) Walter Sisulu
(1955–1958) Oliver Tambo
(1958–1969) Duma Nokwe
(1969–1991) Alfred Nzo
(1991–1997) Cyril Ramaphosa
(1997–2007) Kgalema Motlanthe
(2007–present) Gwede Mantashe
