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.