Bantu Men's Social Centre
The Bantu Men's Social Centre, founded in 1924 in Johannesburg, South Africa, played social, political, and cultural roles in the lives of black South Africans. History The Bantu Men's Social Centre was started by Rev. Ray E. Phillips (1889–1967) of the American Board Mission in central Johannesburg for recreational activities by black South Africans. Phillips was a Congregational minister who in 1918 came to South Africa from the United States with Dora, his wife (1892–1967). During the forty years that the Phillipses spent in South Africa, Ray helped found a number of organisations to assist black South Africans, or to foster racial co-operation. Firmly opposed to segregation, Phillips was involved in the founding of the South African Institute of Race Relations (1929), the Johannesburg Coordinating Council for Non-European Welfare Organization, and the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work (1941), of which he was the director. The Hofmeyr School provided training for black social workers, among whom was Winnie Madikizela, before her marriage to Nelson Mandela. Political activists like Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu (1912–2003) were members of the Bantu Men's Social Centre, and the African National Congress's Youth League was started on its premises in 1944. The Social Centre