Potlako Leballo - Move To South Africa

Move To South Africa

In 1940, Leballo became a student at Lovedale College, near Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

He was active in the African National Congress Youth League until he and other radical leaders including Robert Sobukwe were expelled from the ANC and went on to form the PAC, a more radical Africanist movement. He held the distinction of having successfully nominated Chief Albert Lutuli (1952) and Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe (1959) to the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) respectively. He stated later (1984) than he believed that leaving the ANC (although encouraged by Kwame Nkrumah and the Basuto leader Ntsu Mokhehle) was a mistake and that his "Africanists" should have fought for control of the party rather than forming a new one. He was elected Secretary General of the PAC and within a year the new party was seriously challenging the ANC.