History
The founding of the SANNC was in direct response to injustice against black South Africans at the hands of the government then in power. It can be said that the SANNC had its origins in a pronouncement by Pixley ka Isaka Seme who said in 1911 Forget all the past differences among Africans and unite in one national organisation. The SANNC was founded in the subsequent year on 8 January 1912.
The government of the newly formed Union of South Africa began a systematic oppression of black people in South Africa. The Land Act was promulgated in 1913 forcing many non-whites from their farms into the cities and towns to work, and to restrict their movement within South Africa.
By 1919, the SANNC was leading a campaign against passes but then became dormant in the mid-1920s. During that time, black people were also represented by the ICU and the previously white-only Communist party. In 1923, the organisation became African National Congress, and in 1929 the ANC supported a militant mineworkers' strike.
By 1927, J.T. Gumede (president of the ANC) proposed cooperation 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.
The ANC responded militarily 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.
In 1955, the Congress of the People officially adopted the Freedom Charter, stating the core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies the South African Communist Party (SACP), the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats (COD) and the Coloured People's Congress. The government claimed that this was a communist document, and consequently leaders of the ANC and Congress were arrested. 1960 saw the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 people were killed when police opened fire on anti-apartheid protesters.
Whites eventually joined the fight against apartheid, leading many Black nationalists to break away from the ANC.
During apartheid 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. Massacres of each other's supporters include the Shell House massacre and the Boipatong massacre.
The ANC and its members were officially removed from the United States terrorism watch list in 2008.
Read more about this topic: African National Congress
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