ANC

Origins

A successor of the Cape Colony's Imbumba Yamanyama organisation, the ANC was founded as the South African Native National Congress in Bloemfontein on 8 January 1912, and was renamed the African National Congress in 1923. Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Sol Plaatje, John Langalibalele Dube, and Walter Rubusana founded the organisation, who, like much of the ANC's early membership, were from the conservative, educated, and religious professional classes of black South African society. Although they would not take part, Xhosa chiefs would show huge support for the organisation; as a result, King Jongilizwe donated 50 cows to it during its founding. Around 1920, in a partial shift away from its early focus on the "politics of petitioning", the ANC developed a programme of passive resistance directed primarily at the expansion and entrenchment of pass laws. When Josiah Gumede took over as ANC president in 1927, he advocated for a strategy of mass mobilisation and cooperation with the Communist Party, but was voted out of office in 1930 and replaced with the traditionalist Seme, whose leadership saw the ANC's influence wane.