The Long Walk to Freedom (19 page)

Change was in the air in the 1940s. The Atlantic Charter of 1941, signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, reaffirmed faith in the dignity of each human being and propagated a host of democratic principles. Some in the West saw the charter as empty promises, but not those of us in Africa. Inspired by the Atlantic Charter and the fight of the Allies against tyranny and oppression, the ANC created its own charter, called African Claims, which called for full citizenship for all Africans, the right to buy land, and the repeal of all discriminatory legislation. We hoped that the government and ordinary South Africans would see that the principles they were fighting for in Europe were the same ones we were advocating at home.

Walter’s house in Orlando was a mecca for activists and ANC members. It was a warm, welcoming place and I was often there either to sample a political discussion or MaSisulu’s cooking. One night in 1943 I met Anton Lembede, who held master of arts and bachelor of law degrees, and A. P. Mda. From the moment I heard Lembede speak, I knew I was seeing a magnetic personality who thought in original and often startling ways. He was then one of a handful of African lawyers in all of South Africa and was the legal partner of the venerable Dr. Pixley ka Seme, one of the founders of the ANC.

Lembede said that Africa was a black man’s continent, and it was up to Africans to reassert themselves and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. He hated the idea of the black inferiority complex and castigated what he called the worship and idolization of the West and their ideas. The inferiority complex, he affirmed, was the greatest barrier to liberation. He noted that wherever the African had been given the opportunity, he was capable of developing to the same extent as the white man, citing such African heroes as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Haile Selassie. “The color of my skin is beautiful,” he said, “like the black soil of Mother Africa.” He believed blacks had to improve their own self-image before they could initiate successful mass action. He preached self-reliance and self-determination, and called his philosophy Africanism. We took it for granted that one day he would lead the ANC.

Lembede declared that a new spirit was stirring among the people, that ethnic differences were melting away, that young men and women thought of themselves as Africans first and foremost, not as Xhosas or Ndebeles or Tswanas. Lembede, whose father was an illiterate Zulu peasant from Natal, had trained as a teacher at Adam’s College, an American Board of Missions institution. He had taught for years in the Orange Free State, learned Afrikaans, and came to see Afrikaner nationalism as a prototype of African nationalism.

As Lembede later wrote in the newspaper
Inkundla ya Bantu,
an African newspaper in Natal:

The history of modern times is the history of nationalism. Nationalism has been tested in the people’s struggles and the fires of battle and found to be the only antidote against foreign rule and modern imperialism. It is for that reason that the great imperialistic powers feverishly endeavor with all their might to discourage and eradicate all nationalistic tendencies among their alien subjects; for that purpose huge and enormous sums of money are lavishly expended on propaganda against nationalism which is dismissed as “narrow,” “barbarous,” “uncultured,” “devilish,” etc. Some alien subjects become dupes of this sinister propaganda and consequently become tools or instruments of imperialism for which great service they are highly praised by the imperialistic power and showered with such epithets as “cultured,” “liberal,” “progressive,” “broadminded,” etc.

Lembede’s views struck a chord in me. I, too, had been susceptible to paternalistic British colonialism and the appeal of being perceived by whites as “cultured” and “progressive” and “civilized.” I was already on my way to being drawn into the black elite that Britain sought to create in Africa. That is what everyone from the regent to Mr. Sidelsky had wanted for me. But it was an illusion. Like Lembede, I came to see the antidote as militant African nationalism.

Lembede’s friend and partner was Peter Mda, better known as A.P. While Lembede tended to imprecision and was inclined to be verbose, Mda was controlled and exact. Lembede could be vague and mystical; Mda was specific and scientific. Mda’s practicality was a perfect foil for Lembede’s idealism.

Other young men were thinking along the same lines and we would all meet to discuss these ideas. In addition to Lembede and Mda, these men included Walter Sisulu; Oliver Tambo; Dr. Lionel Majombozi; Victor Mbobo, my former teacher at Healdtown; William Nkomo, a medical student who was a member of the CP; Jordan Ngubane, a journalist from Natal who worked for
Inkundla
as well as the
Bantu World,
the largest-selling African newspaper; David Bopape, secretary of the ANC in the Transvaal and member of the Communist Party; and many others. Many felt, perhaps unfairly, that the ANC as a whole had become the preserve of a tired, unmilitant, privileged African elite more concerned with protecting their own rights than those of the masses. The general consensus was that some action must be taken, and Dr. Majombozi proposed forming a Youth League as a way of lighting a fire under the leadership of the ANC.

In 1943, a delegation including Lembede, Mda, Sisulu, Tambo, Nkomo, and myself went to see Dr. Xuma, who was head of the ANC, at his rather grand house in Sophiatown. Dr. Xuma had a surgery at his home in addition to a small farm. Dr. Xuma had performed a great service to the ANC. He had roused it from its slumbering state under Dr. ka Seme, when the organization had shrunk in size and importance. When he assumed the presidency, the ANC had seventeen shillings and sixpence in its treasury, and he had boosted the amount to four thousand pounds. He was admired by traditional leaders, had relationships with cabinet ministers, and exuded a sense of security and confidence. But he also carried himself with an air of superciliousness that did not befit the leader of a mass organization. As devoted as he was to the ANC, his medical practice took precedence. Xuma presided over the era of delegations, deputations, letters, and telegrams. Everything was done in the English manner, the idea being that despite our disagreements we were all gentlemen. He enjoyed the relationships he had formed with the white establishment and did not want to jeopardize them with political action.

At our meeting, we told him that we intended to organize a Youth League and a campaign of action designed to mobilize mass support. We had brought a copy of the draft constitution and manifesto with us. We told Dr. Xuma that the ANC was in danger of becoming marginalized unless it stirred itself and took up new methods. Dr. Xuma felt threatened by our delegation and strongly objected to a Youth League constitution. He thought the league should be a more loosely organized group and act mainly as a recruiting committee for the ANC. In a paternalistic way, Dr. Xuma went on to tell us that Africans as a group were too unorganized and undisciplined to participate in a mass campaign and that such a campaign would be rash and dangerous.

Shortly after the meeting with Dr. Xuma, a provisional committee of the Youth League was formed, under the leadership of William Nkomo. The members of the committee journeyed to the ANC annual conference in Bloemfontein in December of 1943, where they proposed the formation of a Youth League to help recruit new members to the organization. The proposal was accepted.

The actual formation of the Youth League took place on Easter Sunday, 1944, at the Bantu Men’s Social Center on Eloff Street. There were about one hundred men there, some coming from as far away as Pretoria. It was a select group, an elite group, a great number of us being Fort Hare graduates; we were far from a mass movement. Lembede gave a lecture on the history of nations, a tour of the horizon from ancient Greece to medieval Europe to the age of colonization. He emphasized the historical achievements of Africa and Africans, and noted how foolish it was for whites to see themselves as a chosen people and an intrinsically superior race.

Jordan Ngubane, A. P. Mda, and William Nkomo all spoke, and emphasized the emerging spirit of African nationalism. Lembede was elected the president, Oliver Tambo, the secretary, and Walter Sisulu became the treasurer. A. P. Mda, Jordan Ngubane, Lionel Majombozi, Congress Mbata, David Bopape, and I were elected to the executive committee. We were later joined by such prominent young men as Godfrey Pitje, a student (later teacher then lawyer); Arthur Letele, Wilson Conco, Diliza Mji, and Nthato Motlana, all medical doctors; Dan Tloome, a trade unionist; and Joe Matthews, Duma Nokwe, and Robert Sobukwe, all students. Branches were soon established in all the provinces.

The basic policy of the league did not differ from the ANC’s first constitution in 1912. But we were reaffirming and underscoring those original concerns, many of which had gone by the wayside. African nationalism was our battle cry, and our creed was the creation of one nation out of many tribes, the overthrow of white supremacy, and the establishment of a truly democratic form of government. Our manifesto stated: “We believe that the national liberation of Africans will be achieved by Africans themselves. . . . The Congress Youth League must be the brains-trust and power-station of the spirit of African nationalism.”

The manifesto utterly rejected the notion of trusteeship, the idea that the white government somehow had African interests at heart. We cited the crippling, anti-African legislation of the past forty years, beginning with the 1913 Land Act, which ultimately deprived blacks of 87 percent of the territory in the land of their birth; the Urban Areas Act of 1923, which created teeming African slums, politely called “native locations,” in order to supply cheap labor to white industry; the Color Bar Act of 1926, which banned Africans from practicing skilled trades; the Native Administration Act of 1927, which made the British Crown, rather than the paramount chiefs, the supreme chief over all African areas; and finally, in 1936, the Representation of Natives Act, which removed Africans from the Common Voters’ Roll in the Cape, thereby shattering any illusion that whites would allow Africans to have control over their own destiny.

We were extremely wary of communism. The document stated, “We may borrow . . . from foreign ideologies, but we reject the wholesale importation of foreign ideologies into Africa.” This was an implicit rebuke to the Communist Party, which Lembede and many others, including myself, considered a “foreign” ideology unsuited to the African situation. Lembede felt that the Communist Party was dominated by whites, which undermined African self-confidence and initiative.

A number of committees were formed that day, but the primary purpose of the Youth League was to give direction to the ANC in its quest for political freedom. Although I agreed with this, I was nervous about joining the league and still had doubts about the extent of my political commitment. I was then working full-time and studying part-time, and had little time outside of those two activities. I also possessed a certain insecurity, feeling politically backward compared to Walter, Lembede, and Mda. They were men who knew their minds, and I was, as yet, unformed. I still lacked confidence as a speaker, and was intimidated by the eloquence of so many of those in the league.

Lembede’s Africanism was not universally supported because his ideas were characterized by a racial exclusivity that disturbed some of the other Youth Leaguers. Some of the Youth Leaguers felt that a nationalism that would include sympathetic whites was a more desirable course. Others, including myself, countered that if blacks were offered a multiracial form of struggle, they would remain enamored of white culture and prey to a continuing sense of inferiority. At the time, I was firmly opposed to allowing Communists or whites to join the league.

*    *    *

Walter’s house was my home away from home. For several months in the early 1940s, it actually was my home when I had no other place to stay. The house was always full, and it seemed there was a perpetual discussion going on about politics. Albertina, Walter’s wife, was a wise and wonderful presence, and a strong supporter of Walter’s political work. (At their wedding, Anton Lembede said: “Albertina, you have married a married man: Walter married politics long before he met you.”)

It was in the lounge of the Sisulus’ home that I met Evelyn Mase, my first wife. She was a quiet, pretty girl from the countryside who did not seem overawed by the comings and goings at the Sisulus’. She was then training as a nurse with Albertina and Peter Mda’s wife, Rose, at the Johannesburg non-European General Hospital.

Evelyn was from Engcobo, in the Transkei, some distance west of Umtata. Her father, a mineworker, had died when she was an infant, and her mother when she was twelve. After completing grade school, Evelyn was sent to Johannesburg to attend high school. She stayed with her brother, Sam Mase, who was then living at the Sisulus’ house. MaSisulu, Walter’s mother, was the sister of Evelyn’s father’s mother. The Sisulus treated Evelyn as if she was a favorite daughter, and she was much loved by them.