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The Rise of Black Nationalism

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The Rise of Black Nationalism The rise of Black nationalism We emphasise that although time and care hass been spent preparing this paper^ it has been compiled by a committee and is not a work of scholarship* CAPE WESTERN REGION A FRICAN protest has a long history in South lawyer from Natal, was treasurer; and vice-presi- Africa. Starting with the conflict between dents included the Rev. Walter Rubusana, MPC Black and White in the 19th century, Africans for Tembuland in the Cape Colony. were gradually forced to come to terms with Although initiated and led by a mission-edu­ White power and western technology. cated, westernised elite, the intention was to The first attempts at political organisation on incorporate the chiefs as representatives of their a national scale came in the first decade of the tribal communities in an organisation embracing 20th century. In the meantime, divergent policies Africans of alt stations. affecting Black/White relations had evolved in Organised largely as a reaction to the ex­ the Boer republics and the British colonies. clusion of Africans from the government of South At the turn of the century there were over Africa, the positive intention of the organisation 12 000 Africans on the common voters' roll in was to act as a pressure group, defending African the Cape Colony. African voters exerted consider­ interests. Racial discrimination should be removed able influence in five Eastern Cape constituencies. and it was hoped that through improved educa­ Political leaders were drawn from the growing tion, economic progress and evolutionary partici­ pation in the country's political institutions, com­ class of westernised Africans —• the so-called mon citizenship would result.. "school people" as opposed to the "red blanket people". One of these was John Tengo Jabavu, The continuity noticeable in Congress's political editor of the first Xhosa/English newspaper to attitudes over four decades may be attributed to express African opinion — Imvo Zabantsundu, the persistence of certain factors: which was founded in 1884. Abhorrence of racial discrimination and legis­ The liberal Cape system (non-racial qualified lation passed by the South African government, franchise and the right to purchase land outside for example: (a) The Native Land Act of 1913, reserves) offered a means to political adjustment which stopped the share-crop system (whereby an for Africans of the Cape which might have been African farmed a portion of a White farmer's applied in the two defeated republics after the land, paying a proportion of his crop as rent) and also drastically limited the right of Africans to Anglo-Boer War. own land. It resulted in terrible hardship for Instead the Treaty of Verecniging specifically those who were forced off White-owned land and left "the question of granting the franchise to severely restricted the quota of land allocated natives" in abeyance. to Africans. In 1908 an all-White National Convention met to discuss Union. Far from accepting the Cape The Hertzog Bills, first mooted in 1925, which system as the pattern, the former republics and became law in 1936. One, the Native Representa­ Natal insisted there should be land segregation, tion Bill provided among other things for the re­ no equality for Africans in church or state, and moval of Africans from the common voters roll that Africans should be governed as a race in the Cape and their representation in Parlia­ apart. ment by Whites. As those developments unfolded, so the ferment The other, the Native Land and Trust Act, and sense of outrage in African circles increased. proposed to purchase more land for Africans than The first protest organisations were local, but provided in the 1910 Act, the projected total were followed in 1909 by a Native Conventian confining them to less than 13 per cent of South in Bloemfontein, attended by delegates from all Africa's land area. (In 1936 that meant 370 parts of the country. It was decided to plead acres for every White compared with six for for an extension of the Cape tradition. However, every African.) neither resolution nor a delegation to London • Recognition of the economic interdependence were effective. of all races in South Africa. As urbanisation in­ In 1912, on the initiative of several young creased the issues of African access to urban men recently returned from overseas study, an freehold and the necessity for improved welfare inaugural conference was called and the South services were highlighted. African Native National Congress (later renamed • Resentment over the pass laws. Protests the African National Congress) was founded. against these laws date back to 1913, when Con­ The Rev. John Dubc, editor of Ilanga Lase gress approved passive resistance by Free State Natal (The Sun of Natal), was elected first presi­ women who refused to carry passes. dent; Solomon T. Plaatje, a writer in English and The ANC saw the pass laws and the system lawyer from Natal, was treasurer; and vice-chair- of migrant labour as a means of ensuring a cheap The Black Sash, August 1970 25 Die Swart Serp, Augustus 1976 labour force while denying the right to seek and organised pan-Africanism in the ranks of the advancement on the basis of equal opportunity. ANC may be found in the formation of the Youth- The 1920s provided some stormy industrial League in 1944". At the ANC's annual conference conflicts. What in fact was taking place was in 1949 the League advocated a total boycott an industrial revolution in which Black labour of all elections provided for by the Native Re­ played a vital part. The possibility of an asser­ presentation Act of 1936, and the adoption of a tive mass movement was demonstrated by the definite programme to be achieved by methods phenomenal but short-lived Industrial and Com­ of passive resistance, non-collaboration and strike mercial Workers' Union. action where necessary. Founded in 1919 by Clemens Kadalie, its mem­ The League's triumph in carrying the Congress bership had risen by 1927 to between 50 and led to the resignation of Dr. Xuma, who was suc­ 80 000. The ICU successfully negotiated several ceeded by Dr Moroka. But while the ANC was wage claims, thereby raising serious concern in moving towards a more militant stance, a change Government circles. But financial and other prob­ was taking place among the White electorate as lems brought about splintering of the ICU and well, manifested by the victory of the National the gradual waning of its power. Party in the election of 1948. Moderation and conciliation were watchwords In the 1950s, under the leadership of Malan, of the ANC during the 1920s and 30». Strydom and Vcrwoerd, apartheid was entrenched Congress hoped to check the spread of racial by a series of parliamentary acts. The 1950 discrimination, to modify native policy and to Suppression of Communism Act had a bearing on establish a consensus within South African soci­ the ANC and similar organisations for it legis­ ety which would accept non-racial ideals as a lated not only against communists but against basis for legislation. Its efforts were ineffectual, anyone shown to advocate "any of the objects of however, the reasons for failure lying in the po­ Communism". litical power structure established at Union — Nevertheless, in 1952 the ANC (by then 40 Africans having no constitutional leverage; the years in existence) announced that it, together fears and prejudices prevalent in White politics, with the South African Indian Congress, would especially in the growth of an exclusive, inward- mount a campaign of passive resistance agains*; looking Afrikaner nationalism and the weakness unjust and oppressive laws. of Congress organisation. This Defiance Campaign lasted for many The world conflict of 1939-45 was a war of months, resulting in the arrest of 8 577 passive ideologies in which Africans perceived they would resisters and a vast increase in the membership not be better off if the Nazi creed prevailed. of the ANC. Prior to this, the imaginations of Blacks in It resulted also in much publicity overseas. But South Africa had been stirred by Ethiopian re­ from the Government came stricter legislation, sistance to Mussolini's forces. culminating in the General Law Amendment Act Though the sense of identification, experien­ and the Public Safety Act of 1953, which vir­ ced then — with Black men struggling against tually brought the defiance campaign to a close. White aggression — was lacking later, the ANC In June 1955 a Congress of the People met at supported the war effort. Initially Congress con­ Kliptown outside Johannesburg. Prof. Z. K. Mat­ sidered making its support conditional on Black thews had suggested that the ANC call this meet­ soldiers carrying arms like their White coun­ ing, which was attended also by the SAIC, the terparts, but this condition was opposed by Dr recently formed Cnogress of Democrats (a White A. B. Xuma, then President-General of the ANC, organisation) and the SA Coloured People's Or­ and others. ganisation. In the end co-operation was given along with a A Freedom Charter, which set out aims in very plea for full citizenship and equal rights. Afri­ general terms and concluded with a promise to cans, who enlisted served by and large in menial fight through to victory was drawn up. and supportive positions. Vigorous protests and demonstrations followed:, During the decade of the 40s the ANC was but the Special Branch had also stepped up its ac­ revitalised and consolidated under the leadership tivities. In December 1956, 156 people were ar­ of Dr Xuma. It was during this period that a rested including Chief Luthuli, then President- more radical sub-group, the Congress Youth Lea­ general of the ANC, and other Congress leaders.
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