How did African Nationalism develop, 1948-59?

Question 1

In what year was the ANC created?
Why was it created?
Why did it not succeed in winning mass support?

Answer 1

1912
Black professionals felt betrayed that blacks had been excluded from political rights when the Union of South Africa was created in 1910
It’s leaders tended to be cautious, hoping that the whites would change their minds

Question 2

What was one of the diverse examples of militant protest in the 1940s- prominent before the Group Areas Act?
Who was nicknamed “slicer of land” for his political leadership as a shack landlord?

Answer 2

Shack/squatter settlements, led illegal occupation of land and won thousands of followers who would riot when city officials tried to restrain them
James Mpanza

Question 3

What is an example of the diverse types of militant protest where black workers threatened the core industry and Smuts had to call in the army to assist police in breaking the strike?

Answer 3

1946, African miners strike- black members of the communist party played a key role in the organisation of some of the actions

Question 4

In which two years were large bus boycotts held?

Answer 4

1944, 1949

Question 5

When was the ANC youth league created?
Who were they inspired by (give two)?
Name three key members of the ANC Youth League
What ideology did they develop which prioritised the self-determination of the African people?

Answer 5

1944
the rise of the global anti-colonial rhetoric, new confidence of African nationalists in West Africa
Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela
Africanist ideology

Question 6

When did the ANC Youth League launch their Programme of Action, why this year?
Why was this different to previous ANC protest against white minority rule?
Rather than ideologies such as socialism or a return to African traditional leadership, what three things did they call for?
What was a difference between Afrikaner nationalists and African nationalists?

Answer 6

1949, year after National Party came to power
It was a far more confrontational approach
African consciousness, nationalism and a united African people
African nationalists were not significantly motivated by religious ideas

Question 7

Though believing in no class boundaries for Africanism, where had some of the Youth Leaguers gone?
What was the name of the moderate president which the youth league helped oust, what year and who was he replaced by that was more sympathetic?
What was non-racialism?
What would be important to note about the visions of the future, even within the ANC, on Africanism and democratic non-racialism?

Answer 7

Universities (largely Fort Hare)
Dr Xuma, Albert Luthuli
The inclusion of activists of all races who supported a fully democratic country
There were different ideas about what it would look like

Question 8

Because the communists realised they wouldn’t find mass support by the 40s, what did idea did they accept which involved them working with African nationalists?
What year was the communist party banned?
How did Youth Leaguers initially feel about communists joining the ANC?
What did Indians/Coloureds do as they weren’t accepted into the ANC itself?
What year was the Liberal Party formed?
What did the Liberal Party advocate rather than racial rhetoric?
Who was the liberal Party suspicious of which meant they didn’t collaborate?

Answer 8

two-phase revolution
1950
uneasy 
formed parallel Congress organisations and became part of the Congress Alliance
1953
respect and equal individual rights 
The ANC and Communists

Question 9

What year was the ANC’s defiance campaign?
What was their strategy?
Which two people were appointed volunteerts-in-chief for this?
Who was the defiance campaign influenced by?
Which cities had the most support? show figures

Answer 9

1952
For groups of volunteers to break racially based restrictions and risk arrest 
Nelson Mandela, leader of the Indian Congress
Mahatma Gandhi (indian nationalist)
6,000 out of 8,000 arrests were made in Port Elizabeth and East London

Question 10

Name a statistic which shows the extreme poverty which Africans lived in in East London
What month/year did the East London defiance campaign begin in, how many people attended the rally?

Answer 10

37% of babies died in their first year

June 1952, 1,500

Question 11

How did ANC activists/volunteers dress in subsequent rallies?
After the first full month of defiance what happened to meetings?
What were many protestors sentenced to?

Answer 11

Uniformed
They were held regularly
One month with hard labour

Question 12

With the increase of youth inclusion, including gang youth, violence also increased, what month did the movement split between the leaders Gwentshe and Fazzie?
What did the Minister of Justice do after riots broke out in Port Elizabeth?

Answer 12

October, Fazzie= radical, Gwentshe=more moderate

banned all public gatherings for a month and sent armed reinforcements to stop meetings

Question 13

What date did activists in East London decide to go ahead with their “religious gathering”?
How many people were meeting there and how did they react to police?
What did the police then do?
How did youths react?

Answer 13

9th November 1952
800, threw stones and sticks at them
Order them to disperse (unsuccessfully), claimed a shot was fired and opened fire themselves
They formed small groups to stone police and burn buildings

Question 14

How many white people were killed as a result of the police shootings?
Why was one of these particularly significant?
What allegation was made about the death of this person?

Answer 14

2
One of them was a nun who was burnt alive when her car was sat on fire
That she was cut up for medicinal purposes

Question 15

How many Africans died at East London defiance campaign?
How many were injured?
What did one policeman later say about the possible number of deaths?
What did the ANC do in response to the incident, why?

Answer 15

7
18
They said that there may have actually been more deaths than Sharpeville
Called off the defiance campaign nationally, they said that the campaign was dependent on tight discipline and non-violent action

Question 16

Why could the defiance campaign be considered a problematic strategy?
Why was it not particularly successful nationally?
Why was the defiance campaign still hugely important for the ANC, give a statistic to support this

Answer 16

It made the leaders of the movement vulnerable as their arrest would disable the movement
Not enough people joined in other than in Port Elizabeth and East London, too much of a risk for them
Membership went from 4,000 to 100,000

Question 17

What year were women first allowed to join the ANC?
What year was an ANC woman’s league formed, what did this do to expand the ANC?
What decade did they expand on their support?
What year did the government announce that it would extend the pass laws to women?
In their protest against passes, how many marched on the seat of government power in Pretoria (Union Buildings)?
What year did they protest outside the pass office in Johannesburg?
What else did women lead the resistance for in the late 50s?

Answer 17

1943
1948, incorporated existing women’s organisations into the ANC
1950s
1955
20,000
1957
the forced removals in Cato Manor, Durban

Question 18

Which two government policies helped trigger rural movements in the late 1950s?

Answer 18

Betterment, Bantu authorities

Question 19

Between which years did the people of Sekhukhuneland try to stave off government interference?
Why were people deeply split by the governments attempt to make sekhukhuneland a homeland in the 1950s?
What was the name of their organisation which took inspiration from the ANC?
What year did the government depose the paramount chief and have him replaced with men who would cooperate?
Why did people particularly dislike this?
How many of those who were seen as government collaborators been beaten or stabbed to death by the following year?
What else did people do to collaborators?
Roughly how many were arrested and tried?

Answer 19

1957-58
Many of the men from here were migrant workers and spent long periods in Pretoria and Johannesburg- they were very opposed to homelands as it made everything around their urban employment more difficult
Sebatakgomo
1957
He had been trying to protect the interests of migrant workers and rural families 
9
Burnt their houses
hundreds

Question 20

What was the Congress of The People Campaign, what year was it written and by which organisation?
What was the name of this document?
What did it essentially call for?
What support did it help garner, as it echoed the language of freedom movements in other parts of the world?

Answer 20

Thousands of people across South Africa submitted their suggestions on issues to be put on the Congress Alliance’s charter of core political beliefs, 1955, the Congress Alliance
The Freedom Charter
A fully democratic South Africa
International support

Question 21

Which ideas from which two organisations did the ANC essentially combine?

Answer 21

the Africanist ideas of the Youth League, the non-racial approach of the combined Congress Alliance

Question 22

What was the name of the regular newsletter published Africanists, as they tried to maintain their distinct political identity?
What phrase/idea did their newsletter regularly use?
What group of people did their biggest concentration of support come from?
Who were their leaders?

Answer 22

the Africanist
“Africa for the Africans”
Teachers
Robert Sobukwe, Potlake Leballo

Question 23

Name three ways that the Africanists differed from the rest of the ANC

Answer 23

They believed that Africa should belong to Africans and therefore didn’t adopt the Freedom Charter
They developed more Pan-Africanist ideas and wanted to “strive… for a United States of Africa”
They wanted more confrontational direct action

Question 24

What year was the split between the Africanists and the rest of the ANC?
Why did this split first occur?
What/who helped fully divide this split?

Answer 24

1958
The leadership of the ANC in the Transvaal was re-elected without debate as the leaders were too occupied with the treason trial to stand for election, Leballo protested and was expelled from the ANC
Luthuli compared the narrow African nationalism of Africanists to tribalism and Sobukwe and nationalists walked out

Question 25

After attempting to form separate provinicial organisations within the ANC, what year did the Africanists form the Pan-African Congress?
From who did they read out telegrams of support?
Give two reasons why the government may have allowed the PAC to organise freely (which the ANC believed)
Why was one of these reasons incorrect?

Answer 25

1959,
Government leaders in independent Ghana and Guinea
It was keen to split the nationalist movement, hoped that the PAC’s views would be closer to “separate development”
The PAC was hostile to the division of South Africa into Banutustans