All-in Africa Conference in Pietermaritzburg, Natal

All-in Africa Conference in Pietermaritzburg, Natal

65 years ago, on 25 – 26 March 1961, the two-day All-in African Conference – with approximately 1,400 delegates from 145 religious, cultural, peasant, intellectual and political bodies – was hosted in the Manaye Hall in Plessislaer, Pietermaritzburg, Natal. The conference called for a national convention of elected representatives of all adult men and women, regardless of race, colour or creed, which was in direct reaction to the white racist National Party declaring South Africa to be a republic. The Republic, it declared, “rests on force to perpetuate the tyranny of the minority”.

Two years after taking office, apartheid architect and then Prime Minister of South Africa, Hendrik Verwoerd realised his “White” republican dream, when a White-only referendum supported his plea for a republic. The date, 31 May 1961, was earmarked for the whites-only Republic of South Africa to be established. According to the resolution of the All-in African Conference, if the apartheid government ignored the demand for a national convention, the people were called upon to organise mass demonstrations on the eve of the proclamation of the Republic.

In December 1960, prior to the All-in Africa Conference, Chief Luthuli and other African National Congress (ANC) leaders convened a Consultative Conference of African Leaders in Orlando, Soweto, to consider united action following the banning of the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), several months of a state of emergency, as well as a whites-only referendum on declaring South Africa a Republic. The Consultative Conference decided to call an All-in Africa Conference to agitate for a national constitutional convention for all South Africans and set up a Continuation Committee.

On 25 March 1960, Mandela’s banning order expired, and he was then free to attend meetings and to travel outside of Johannesburg. He was secretly scheduled to be the main speaker at the conference and the day before he left for Pietermaritzburg, the National Working Committee of the ANC met covertly to discuss the subsequent strategy.

It was then resolved that the ANC would work from underground, adopting a strategy along the lines of the M-Plan in order to survive clandestinely. The meeting also decided that Mandela was to go underground and travel around the country organising the proposed national convention, surfacing occasionally to ensure maximum publicity in order to show that the ANC was still a formidable fighting force.

In his speech to the conference, Mandela called for a national convention in which all South Africans, black and white, Indian and Coloured, would sit down in brotherhood and create a constitution that mirrored the aspirations of the country as a whole. As honorary secretary of the National Action Council, Mandela was tasked to communicate the demands of the conference to the apartheid government, and that if it failed to accede to the demands, a three-day countrywide stay-away be called, beginning on 29 May to coincide with the declaration of South Africa as a republic.

During the conference the following resolutions were passed: “We resolve that should the minority Government ignore this demand of the representatives of the united will of the African people:

– We undertake to stage country-wide demonstrations on the eve of the proclamation of the Republic in protest against this undemocratic act.

– We call on all Africans not to cooperate or collaborate in any way with the proposed South African Republic or any other form of Government which rests on force to perpetuate the tyranny of a minority, and to organise and unite in town and country to carry out constant actions to oppose oppression and win freedom.

– We call on the Indian and Coloured communities and all democratic Europeans to join forces with us in opposition to a regime which is bringing disaster to South Africa and to win a society in which all can enjoy freedom and security.

– We call on democratic people the world over to refrain from any cooperation or dealings with the South African government, to impose economic and other sanctions against this country and to isolate in every possible way the minority Government whose continued disregard of all human rights and freedoms constitutes a threat to world peace.”

Immediately after the Conference, following his appointment as honorary secretary of the National Action Council, Nelson Mandela wrote a letter to apartheid Prime Minister Verwoerd in which he formally instructed him to call a national constitutional convention, and that if he failed to do so, a massive three-day strike would be declared, beginning on 29 May 1961. In the letter Mandela indicated that they were cognisant as the National Action Council of what countermeasures the apartheid government may adopt, considering the difficulties they were already experiencing following the Sharpeville Massacre.

“We have no illusions about the counter-measures your government might take”, Mandela wrote. “During the last twelve months we have gone through a period of grim dictatorship”. Mandela also issued press statements affirming that the strike was going to a peaceful and non-violent stay-at-home. As expected, Verwoerd did not reply to the letter but instead labelled Mandela’s letter as “arrogant” in his speech to Parliament. According to Mandela, “the government instead began to mount one of the most intimidating displays of force ever assembled in the country’s history”.

Sources:
South African History Online (SAHO).
Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom”, Abacus, 1994.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Paul S. Landau, “Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries”, Jacana, 2022.
Columnist, “An all-in-Pietermaritzburg conference?”, The Witness, 15 June 2021.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!