Compare And Contrast The Civil Rights And South African Anti-Apartheid Movement

The U.S. Civil Rights and South African anti-apartheid movements both played major roles in beginning to dismantle the institutional racism that continued to plague most of the world throughout the 20th century. In the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) worked to combat the segregation and discrimination imposed by the Jim Crow laws, that created “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. Similarly, in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) waged war against the apartheid regime put in place by a white government descended from European colonists. Although both groups had similar goals in sight, the methods they used slightly differed. While
the SCLC maintained a commitment to nonviolence throughout its period of activity, the ANC began to branch off into more aggressive ventures with the formation of its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, or MK,) in 1961. This fundamental difference is what sets the two apart – although they can be looked at in a very similar light, the radical use of force by the ANC distinguishes it from its less militant United States counterpart. Both organizations served as key players in the struggle for black liberty and would respectively achieve great strides in their own rights. The SCLC was formed in 1957 after King and several fellow activists decided it was necessary to create a new civil rights organization in order to expand the “Montgomery example of black activism” (Kirk 39). Following the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, King found that progress on civil rights was beginning to lag, and felt it was necessary to take bigger steps for change – thus, the establishment of an organization dedicated to activism would help spur the movement along. According to Kirk (2013), the SCLC had three distinct characteristics. Firstly, because it was largely comprised of southern blacks, it had a “strong indigenous base” in the South. Of the 33 people on the SCLC’s governing board, “all … were black … and from the urban South” (Kirk 40). This allowed black activists in the region to identify with the group and view it as something they could easily be a part of. Secondly, the SCLC had the support and involvement of A. Philip Randolph, a prominent leader in black America who “lent credibility and respectability to the SCLC and provided and important source of political and financial support from the labor movement”. Randolph’s affiliation with the SCLC also allowed the organization to gain mainstream approval due to his anti-Communist position. Randolph’s support gave outsiders the realization that the SCLC was “free from subversive or radical intent” (Kirk 40). Randolph’s anticommunist stance in the SCLC is comparable to Mandela’s similar position in the Youth League. In his biography Long Walk to Freedom he describes how he and his fellow Youth League members were “extremely wary of communism” (Mandela 100). In their manifesto, the Youth League stated “‘We may borrow … from foreign ideologies, but we reject the wholesale importation of foreign ideologies into Africa’” (Mandela 100). This similar fear of communism would lead both groups to gain more approval from their outside peers and unite under a common banner of black pride. Kirks’ final point about the importance of the SLCC is about the structure of the organization itself. Unlike the NAACP, the other predominant black organization at the time, the SCLC “did not solicit individual memberships” – instead, members of the NAACP could join the SCLC and vice versa. This led to many prominent NAACP leaders joining with the SCLC and “demonstrating that both organizations could work side-by-side in the South” (Kirk 40). This relationship between the older generation of the NAACP and the younger generation of the SCLC can be comparable to that of Mandela’s Youth League and the ANC under Dr. Xuma. In Long Walk to Freedom Mandela states, “We in the Youth League had seen the failure of legal and constitutional means to strike at racial oppression”, which is exactly the method employed by Dr. Xuma – he “presided over the era of delegations, deputations, letters, and telegrams” and did not want to hurt his relationship with the white establishment by threatening it with radical political action (Mandela 113, 98). In both the United States and in South Africa, there seemed to be a definitive gap between the older, more civil activist groups and the younger more radical ones. Similarly to the SCLC, Mandela’s version of the ANC formed out of dissatisfaction with the political state of the times.
Mandela and his peers believed that the current ANC leaders were too soft-spoken and did not take a hard enough stance against the oppression that the African people were facing. Throughout Part Three of Long Walk to Freedom Mandela frequently mentions the need for a strong political body that could bring about liberty for Africans. As mentioned previously, Mandela believed that the time for diplomatic negotiation was over, and that it was now necessary to engage in large-scale activism and protest. As Mandela’s role in the ANC increased, the organization began calling for “the pursuit of political rights through the use of boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and noncooperation” (Mandela 115). Although Mandela and his constituents originally believed the struggle against apartheid should be a black-only movement, the ANC’s policy towards a mixed-race movement shifted through the 1950s, and by 1955, whites and Indians had become fully involved in the struggle with the creation of the Freedom Charter, which called for free and equal rights for all Africans in a language similar to that of the American
Constitution. A few years after the drawing up of the Freedom Charter by the ANC and the Congress of the People, the SCLC began its first major campaign against the Jim Crow laws - the sit-in movement of 1960.
For this movement, King stressed the importance of following a “Jail not Bail” policy – “choosing imprisonment over paying fines if convicted” (Kirk 46). This action signified the resolve of the SCLC and proved they were willing to go to jail to support their cause. The sit-in movement would also lead to the birth of the Freedom Riders, civil rights protestors who rode Greyhound buses throughout the South in order to bring an end to segregation in the bus system. During the Freedom Ride, many of the riders were frequently harassed and even assaulted by Jim Crow supporters who were trying to end the movement – local police would often allow the Ku Klux Klan a 15-minute period to beat up the Freedom Riders without any punishment (Kirk 50). Although they faced frequent violence from police and other opposition, the SCLC and its allies remained committed to a strictly nonviolent form of protest. This typically led to great success due to the hostile reaction of racist bystanders who witnessed the SCLC’s demonstrations. To attempt to combat the success brought about by nonviolent activism, police began to quell their own use of force – instead of unleashing dogs on protestors, they would instead arrest them on charges that had nothing to do with segregation, eventually filling up the
jails so much that there would be no demonstrators left to protest (Kirk 55). However, as the Civil Rights movement began to pick up more and more speed, a new wave of activists who believed non-violence was ineffective began to raise their voice. An outspoken proponent of violent resistance was Malcolm X, who heavily criticized King and the SCLC for their passive activism, and who advocated for resistance against whites by “any means necessary” (Kirk 75). However, this allowed King and his supporters to twist Malcolm X’s words and use his threats of violence as an alternative to the SCLC’s passive resistance – if whites didn’t give the black community the rights they deserved, violence was a likely outcome. This tactic would also be heavily practiced in later years in South Africa during the period of Mandela’s 27 year imprisonment – with the birth of MK came a constant threat of violence against the white government. Although the SCLC remained committed to a nonviolent stance throughout the duration of the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the ANC began to militarize as Mandela gained a more prominent role in its leadership. Early ANC movements such as the Defiance Campaign brought activism to a much larger level and remained completely nonviolent – as Mandela states in his autobiography, “during the six months of the campaign, there was not a single act of violence on our side” (Mandela 139). Although the protestors faced armed opposition from the government, they never took place in the riots or violence that often occurred during the campaign, the purpose of which was to create large-scale rebellion against unjust laws targeting black Africans. Although not a great a success in terms of repealing the laws, the campaign sparked a massive growth in the ANC and pushed the organization onto a much larger stage, where mass activism took precedence. However, this push would result in a severe government crackdown and ultimately lead Mandela to appeal for the creation of MK. As government efforts to suppress the anti-apartheid movement intensified, Mandela began to question the effectiveness of the Gandhian principles that the ANC was following in its nonviolent approach. A critical turning point in this process was the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. On March 21, a crowd of 20,000 Africans converged on the Sharpeville police station in protest of the oppressive pass laws put in place by then-president Henrik Verwoerd. As tensions escalated, the police began firing into the crowd, shooting many protestors in the back as they attempted to flee from the violence. In South Africa, martial law was declared after a crowd of 50,000 Africans gathered in Cape Town to protest the shootings (Mandela). Outrage over the incident sparked massive protests and demonstrations throughout the world. During the period of martial law, Mandela and the ANC were forced to go underground to continue their operations. It was in hiding where Mandela began to propose the idea of the creation of a military wing of the ANC. This marks the critical difference between the ANC and the SCLC. Whereas King and his supporters vehemently followed Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence and passive resistance, Mandela viewed nonviolence “not as an inviolable principle but as a tactic to be used as the situation demanded” – he now believed the current situation required a change in approach (Mandela 128). The violent retaliation of the government had gone too far, and now the ANC was planning to strike back through sabotage and aggressive resistance. Beginning with the creation and strategic placement of small-scale bombs and explosives, MK picked specific methods of sabotage to advocate their call for African freedom. From 1960 to 1963, this early stage of MK helped convey to the black community that the time had come to rise up and dismantle apartheid. However, it also resulted in a massive backlash from the white government - there was an influx of “harsh legislation, arrests, torture and political trials, and even executions” (Cherry 23). Another important characteristic of this early period is that although MK was the militant wing of the ANC, its activities during this time never resulted in a loss of life. All attacks were carefully coordinated to attack locations vital to the white government, but as Mandela had said, MK was not a terrorist organization (Cherry). However, as time progressed with little to no change in the political climate, MK moved into more and more militaristic policies. By the later half of the 1960s, MK had begun participating in full-on guerrilla bush warfare in order to bring its troops back into South Africa after receiving military training abroad (Cherry). Two of these major ventures, as discussed by Cherry, were the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns. Although they provided a heroic example for future generations of MK militants, neither achieved any real military or political gains. Although little had been achieved in South Africa, by this time in America, King and his followers had successfully completed several major campaigns throughout the South, including the March on Washington. Around the time of MK’s military campaign, King had faced enormous pressure from fellow leaders to begin armed self-defense against the white police forces that continued to harass protestors. During the Meredith March Against Fear, King and other march leaders became outraged at the lack of support from local highway patrol officers – although they had been promised protection, the police instead tear gassed march participators and dispersed the crowds using billy clubs. It was after this incident that King told journalists, “The government has got to give me some victories if I’m going to keep people non-violent.” (Kirk 113). By this time, many SCLC members had grown weary of nonviolence, and were ready to take up arms against the police and the government. The introduction of the Black Power movement did little to quell these growing sentiments. King felt that Black Power was too nationalistic and separatist, and insisted that the “core tenements” of the Civil Rights movement – integration and nonviolent resistance – had to remain intact for the movement to succeed (Kirk 115). This harkens back to the previously mentioned gap between the older generation and the younger generation of the ANC. Similarly to King, leaders such as Dr. Xuma urged the new younger activists to remain civil and diplomatic in their negotiations. Like King, Xuma and the elder ANC leaders believed success would not be achieved unless diplomacy remained the key method of activism. This is true even in Mandela’s case throughout his early years of politicization. Although he personally believed that nonviolence was only effective to a certain point, he recognized the necessity of keeping the movement passive until it had been pushed to its absolute breaking point. Whereas in the case of King, he felt that nonviolence was an ultimate means to an end, and had to be maintained at all costs. Throughout the 70s and 80s, MK continued to engage in urban warfare and sabotage government buildings. In 1979, the Special Operations Unit was formed and took MK back to its former strategy of “symbolic sabotage” – this inspired the African population once again, and gave birth to the use of “Hit and run / Hit and run / Freedom comes from the barrel of a gun” as a popular slogan (Cherry 58). The ANC and MK would also collaborate with new trade unions and student groups in order to once again play a major role in the anti-apartheid movement (Cherry). However, once violent struggles began to break out in the townships in the mid-1980s, it was clear that the people themselves had taken up arms on their own accord. MK and the ANC would provide military training and occasionally weapons, but youth guerilla groups took part in creating homemade versions of military weapons and were largely responsible for much of the armed struggle (Cherry).
Ultimately, as the 1980s drew to a close and the age of negotiation began, it became evident that MK and its militaristic tactics had sparked a change due to the fear that the white government had of black insurrection; however, this fear was never realized as the apartheid regime would be toppled through the cooperative efforts of new South African president F.W. de Klerk and Mandela along with other ANC leaders. It was through these efforts that a new black South Africa was finally within the sight of those who had struggled so long for freedom. In the United States, King was assassinated in 1968 – however, his legacy of nonviolence included the signing of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mandela would continue to lead the ANC after his release in 1990, making the organization a major political party in South Africa and becoming South African president in 1994. Both leaders would leave behind extensive legacies in the ongoing struggle for equal rights around the world. Although the SCLC and ANC had drastically different methods of action, both effectively achieved their goals and brought about a new era of political equality in their respective countries.