Origins
As a resistance movement, the ANC was predated by a number of black lumpenproletariat resistance movements, among them Umkosi Wezintaba, formed in South Africa between 1890 and 1920.
The ANC was formed on 8 January 1912 by John Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme and Sol Plaatje along with chiefs, people's representatives, and church organizations, and other prominent individuals to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms, the ANC from its inception represented both traditional and modern elements, from tribal chiefs to church and community bodies and educated black professionals, though women were only admitted as affiliate members from 1931 and as full members in 1943.
The formation of the ANC Youth League in 1944 by Anton Lembede heralded a new generation committed to building non-violent mass action against the legal underpinnings of the white minority's supremacy.
In 1946 the ANC allied with the South African Communist Party in assisting in the formation of the South African Mine Workers' Union. After the miners strike became a general strike, the ANC's President General Alfred Bitini Xuma along with delegates of the South African Indian Congress at the 1946 session of the United Nations General Assembly where the treatment of Indians in South Africa was raised by the Government of India. Together, they raised the issue of the police brutality against the miners strike and the wider struggle for equality in South Africa. The ANC also worked with the Natal Indian Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress.
Read more about this topic: History Of The African National Congress
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