African National Congress

I

Introduction

African National Congress (ANC), South African political organization that has been the country’s ruling party since 1994. That year, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, the ANC won South Africa’s first election in which the black majority could vote. Mandela was elected the nation’s first black president. In 1997 veteran leader Thabo Mbeki replaced Mandela as ANC president. The ANC was returned to power in 1999 elections and selected Mbeki to succeed Mandela as South Africa’s president. Jacob Zuma succeeded Mbeki as ANC president in 2007.

II

Founding of the ANC

The ANC was founded in 1912 as a nonviolent civil rights organization that worked to promote the interests of black Africans. With a mostly middle-class constituency, the ANC stressed constitutional means of change through the use of delegations, petitions, and peaceful protest. In 1940 Alfred B. Xuma became ANC president and began recruiting younger, more outspoken members. Among the new recruits were Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Walter Sisulu, who helped found the ANC Youth League in 1944 and soon became the organization’s leading members.

III

Growth of the ANC

ANC membership greatly increased in the 1950s after South Africa’s white-minority government began to implement apartheid, a policy of rigid racial segregation, in 1948. The ANC actively opposed apartheid and engaged in increasing political combat with the government. In 1955 the ANC issued its Freedom Charter, which stated that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” ANC members who believed South Africa belonged only to black Africans formed a rival party, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), in 1959. Seeking to displace the ANC, the PAC organized mass demonstrations that led to the massacre of black protesters in Sharpeville in March 1960. In response to the demonstration, the government declared a state of emergency and banned all black political organizations, including the ANC and PAC.

IV

The ANC Underground

In 1961, after the government had banned the organization, the ANC formed a military wing called Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), which began a campaign of sabotage against the government. During the unrest of the next several years, Mandela and Sisulu were sentenced to life in prison for their ANC activities, and Tambo left South Africa to establish an external wing of the ANC. For the next 30 years the ANC operated as an underground organization, with its principal leaders imprisoned or living outside South Africa. In 1976 a revolt in Soweto, a black community outside Johannesburg, led to a reawakening of black African politics and a renewed assault on apartheid. ANC membership continued to grow throughout this time.

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