HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Congress of the People was a gathering organised by the National Action Council, a multi-racial organisation which later became known as the
Congress Alliance The Congress Alliance was an anti-apartheid political coalition formed in South Africa in the 1950s. Led by the African National Congress, the CA was multi-racial in makeup and committed to the principle of majority rule. Congress of the Peopl ...
, and held in Kliptown on 26 June 1955 to lay out the vision of the South African people. The
Freedom Charter The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
was drawn up at the gathering, which was statement of core principles of the Alliance and a symbol of internal resistance against
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
.


Background

In 1953 prominent black academic Z. K. Matthews proposed that a "Congress of the People" be organised to gather and document the wishes of the people. Organising committees were set up across South Africa. A call was sent out to the people of South Africa by the group later known as the Congress Alliance for proposals for the content of a freedom charter concerning issues such as land, industry, human rights, education, and law. Proposals were received in the form of local demands, in the form of new constitutions, as documents and scraps of papers and these proposals were then developed by a sub-committee into a draft document that could be debated at a future Congress of the People. On 23 June 1955, executives of the ANC, the
South African Indian Congress The South African Indian Congress (SAIC) was an organisation founded in 1921 in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), South Africa. The congress is famous for its strong participation by Mahatma Gandhi and other prominent South African Indian figures du ...
(SAIC), the
South African Congress of Trade Unions The South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was a national trade union federation in South Africa. History The federation was established in March 1955, after right wing unions dissolved the South African Trades and Labour Council in 1954 ...
(SACTU), the
Coloured People's Congress Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
(CPC) and the South African Congress of Democrats (COD) met in Tongaat. This group, who later became known as the Congress Alliance, developed the document known as the
Freedom Charter The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...
and planned a large multi-racial gathering to be held over two days at Kliptown on 26 June 1955, where it was intended that the Charter be ratified after being read out and discussed. The draft proposal for the Charter was presented to each delegate when they arrived in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...
for the Congress. The delegates were elected from rural and urban areas, elected by their communities or organisations with funds raised locally to get their representatives to Johannesburg. Where this was not possible, delegates from communities already present in the city were found.


26 June 1955

The Congress of the People, consisting of around 3,000 people, gathered in Kliptown, part of
Soweto Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a ...
(a large Township (South Africa) outside Johannesburg) on 26 June 1955 in a field surrounded by chicken-wire to give it a lawful claim of being a private gathering, so that it was not prevented from assembling by the South African government. The delegates came from all parts of the country, arriving in Johannesburg via car, bus, bicycle, by foot and horseback. The majority of the people in the gathering were
black South Africans Racial groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by Apartheid remain ingrained in South African society with South Africans and the South African government continuing to classify themselves, and each o ...
, with hundreds of
Indian South Africans Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the ...
,
whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...
and so-called "
Coloureds Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. Sou ...
". The object of the Congress was to adopt a Freedom Charter representing the aspirations of South Africans of all races. The aim was to have a lead speaker present each section of the proposed charter and to open the section to general discussion and debate by the gathering. This did not happen due to the intervention by the government, and each section was instead agreed to, but not by general discussion.
Albert Luthuli Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli ( – 21 July 1967) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, traditional leader, and politician who served as the President-General of the African National Congress from 1952 until his death in 1967. Luthuli wa ...
, Yusuf Dadoo and Father Trevor Huddleston were all honoured with the ANC's highest honour, Isitwalandwe, but only Huddleston was able to receive his, the other two being subject to banning orders issued by the government. The Congress concluded on 27 June, when the gathering was surrounded by the
South African Police The South African Police (SAP) was the national police force and law enforcement agency in South Africa from 1913 to 1994; it was the ''de facto'' police force in the territory of South West Africa (Namibia) from 1939 to 1981. After South Af ...
and broken up. They made several arrests, confiscated documents and photographed the delegates.


Ratification of the Charter

The last aim of the Congress was to collect a million signatures by 26 June 1956 to acknowledge the creation of the Freedom Charter. A quota of signatures was decided upon with the following required from each province: Transvaal 450,000;
Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...
350,000; Natal 150,000 and the
Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...
50,000. The delegates then returned home to report back to their communities or organisations to spread the adoption of the Freedom Charter. By the end of 1955, 156 leading Congress Alliance activists were arrested and tried for treason in the
1956 Treason Trial The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956. The main trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not ...
; the Charter itself was used as evidence and eventually declared illegal.


Significance of the event

The Congress of the People led to the Congress movement assuming a fully non-racial character for the first time. From this people's meeting and Charter was born a truly national liberation movement with the aim of a complete social transformation, requiring a radical restructuring of all aspects of South African society.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Congress of the People (1955) Events associated with apartheid History of the African National Congress Soweto 1955 in South Africa 1955 conferences Opposition to apartheid in South Africa