When was the ANC formed?
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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.
Parliament of South Africa
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Founded on 8 January 1912 by John Langalibalele Dube in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), its primary mission was to give voting rights to black and mixed-race Africans and, from the 1940s, to end apartheid. The ANC originally attempted to use nonviolent protests to end apartheid, however, the Sharpeville massacre resulted in the deaths of 69 black Africans and contributed to deteriorating relations with the South African government. On 8 April 1960, the administration of Charles Robberts Swart, banned the ANC and forced the party to leave South Africa. After the ban, the ANC formed the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) to fight against apartheid utilizing guerrilla warfare and sabotage. On 3 February 1990, State President F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and released Nelson Mandela on 11 February 1990. On 17 March 1992, the apartheid referendum was passed by the voters removing apartheid and allowing the ANC to run in the 1994 election. Since the 1994 election the ANC has performed better than 60% in all general elections, including the most recent 2014 election.
African National Congress
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The African National Congress Women's League is the women's wing of the African National Congress (ANC). It was founded in 1931 as the Bantu Women's League, with Charlotte Maxeke as its first president. It was integrated into the ANC during the period from 1943, when women were first admitted as members of the ANC, to 1948, when the ANCWL was officially founded. It participated with the Federation of South African Women in protests against the apartheid-era government, such as the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the Women's March of 9 August 1956. In 1956, Lilian Ngoyi became the first elected female member of the ANC National Executive Committee. In 1960 the organization was banned along with the ANC forcing its central leaders underground; it was unbanned in 1990 when the ANC was likewise unbanned.
African National Congress Women's League
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In 1966 the ANC Youth and Student Section (ANC YSS) was formed, with Former President Thabo Mbeki as leader in the United Kingdom. ANC YSS would later play critical roles in the country’s transition to a democracy. The leadership of the ANC YSS included Billy Modise, Joe Nhlanhla who would later become Mbeki’s first minister of intelligence and was the chair of the ASA (The African Students Association) in Moscow and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Jackie Selebi along with many others. The ANC YSS had two main objectives: looking after the welfare of the ANC youth and mobilising youth against apartheid internationally
Billy Modise
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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.
A. P. Mda
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Much later, when efforts of passive protest and resistance against apartheid had been unsuccessful, the African National Congress (ANC) decided to form a military or armed group. The decision to moved to armed resistance happened after the ANC was banned by the government. Nelson Mandela believed that non-violent resistance was not working to stop Apartheid, and advocated acts of sabotage. The date of 16 December is the anniversary of the 1961 founding of Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation" or MK), the armed wing of the ANC. On that day, Umkhonto we Sizwe enacted its "first acts of sabotage" which included bomb blasts against government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. Also on 16 December 1961, the Umkhonto we Sizwe distributed leaflets describing how the group "will carry on the struggle for freedom and democracy by new methods, which are necessary to complement the actions of the established national liberation organsations."
Day of Reconciliation
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In 1985, the ANC-Freight-Rover team was formed in 1985 by the transport operator Tony Capper and the former racing cyclist Phil Griffiths, who had plans to get the team into the Tour de France. The team competed on the Continent and in Britain. In Britain, the British Cycling Federation limited teams to six riders, while continental squads had 20 or more. To get around this, the squad in Britain split into three different teams with different sponsors e.g. Lycra-Halfords. On the Continent, all the riders rode under one team name.
ANC–Halfords
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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.
Internal resistance to apartheid
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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.
Oliver Tambo
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Although its creation predated apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) became the primary force in opposition to the government after its conservative leadership was superseded by the organisation's Youth League (ANCYL) in 1949. Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, elected to the ANC's National Executive that year, the ANCYL advocated a radical black nationalist programme that combined the Africanist ideas of Anton Lembede with those of Marxism. They brought the notion that white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns. The ideals of the ANC and ANCYL are stated in the ANC official web site and state, concerning the "Tripartite Alliance", "The Alliance is founded on a common commitment to the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution, and the need to unite the largest possible cross-section of South Africans behind these objectives." This cites the actionable intent, their goal to end oppression.
Internal resistance to apartheid