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ABSTRACT
Within the literature on Black Consciousness, the National Youth Organization (NAYO) is relatively unknown compared to its sister organisations like the South African Student Organization (SASO) and South African Students’ Movement (SASM). Organisers in NAYO played a significant role conscientising and organising with the working people of South Africa’s Black urban landscape. The organisation was a space created for Black South African youth who were not based in secondary or tertiary education. Hence, it disproportionately attracted the working poor and what Marxists would call the lumpen-proletariat population. Their politicising under Black Consciousness and actions to spread NAYO’s gospel left an indelible mark on the South African liberation struggle during the 1970s and beyond. Lastly, NAYO and its various regional branches served as a recruiting ground for the various South African armed wings in exile during the 1970s.
Notes
1 For a brief list of key literatures see the following: G. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978); R. Fatton Jr., Black Consciousness in South Africa: The Dialectics of Ideological Resistance to White Supremacy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986); B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana and L. Wilson, eds, Bounds of Possibility: The Legacy of Steve Biko and Black Consciousness (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1991); T. Karis and G. Gerhart, eds, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882–1990, Vol. 5, Nadir and Resurgence, 1964–1979 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); C. van Wyk, ed., We Write What We Like: Celebrating Steve Biko (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2007); A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander and N. Gibson, eds, Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); D. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968–1972 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010); J. Brown, The Road to Soweto: Resistance and the Uprising of 16 June 1976 (Suffolk: James Currey, 2016); H. Tafira, Black Nationalist Thought in South Africa (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); I. Macqueen, Black Consciousness and Progressive Movements under Apartheid (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2018).
2 W. Rodney, A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881–1905 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981). Walter Rodney was a radical Guyanese scholar-activist dedicated to Pan-African liberation. During his time, he developed the term ‘working people’, as opposed to working class, as an intervention in Marxist debates on class. He felt ‘working class’ often did not capture the conditions, lives and experiences of Black people. He preferred the term ‘working people’ as a way to humanise a people working to live and having humanity and potential.
3 T. Karis and G. Gerhart, ‘The Black Consciousness Movement: Confronting the State, 1972–1976’, in Karis and Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, 120–155.
4 T. Karis and G. Gerhart, ‘The 1976 Soweto Uprising’, in Karis and Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, 156–188; G. Houston and B. Magubane, ‘The ANC Political Underground in the 1970s', in The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 2 [1970–1980] (Pretoria, UNISA Press, 2007). T. Asheeke, ‘“Arming Black Consciousness”: The Formation of the Bokwe Group/Azanian Peoples' Liberation Front, April 1972–September 1976’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 45, 1 (2019), 69–88.
5 M. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).
6 L. Hadfield, Liberation and Development: Black Consciousness Community Programs in South Africa (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2016).
7 S. Biko with M. Arnold, ed., Steve Biko: Black Consciousness in South Africa (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 31.
8 Ibid., 32.
9 Forthcoming publication (2021/2022).
10 Staff Reporter, ‘“I Talked out of Terror”, Says Accused’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 July, 1976, WHP (II) Folder 7, A2675.
11 A. Tiro, ‘Memorandum by SASO PO to Regional Secretaries, SRC Presidents and SASO Local Chairman’, University of Witwatersrand: Historical Papers (hereafter WHP) (III) SASO Box 753, A2675
12 M. Mohapi, Eastern Cape Report for General Student’s Council 1973 as at 31st May, 1973, WHP (III) A2675. Also important to note is that King Williamstown/Ginsberg is where Biko was born and currently buried.
13 Composite Report of the Interim – Executive to the 4th General Students Council, St. Peters’ Conference Centre, Hammanskraal 14–22 July 1973, 20, WHP (III) A2675.
14 National Youth Organisation Constitution, Policy Statement, and Recommended Action Program, June 1973, WHP (I) NAYO Box 592, A2675.
15 Commissions presented at 4th General Students’ Organisation, St. Peters’ Seminary, Hammanskraal 14–22 July 1973, WHP (III) SASO Box 753, A2675.
16 For more on Tiro and the rebellion see A. Heffernan, ‘Black Consciousness's Lost Leader: Abraham Tiro, the University of the North, and the Seeds of South Africa's Student Movement in the 1970s’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 1 (2015), 173–196; G. Tiro, Parcel of Death: The Biography of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2019).
17 T. Karis and G. Gerhart, ‘The Black Consciousness Movement: Confronting the State, 1972–1976’, in Karis and Gerhart, eds, From Protest to Challenge, 120–155.
18 Interview with Kehla Mthembu, New York, 24 February 1989, Tom Karis (TK) and Gail Gerhart (GG), WHP (I) Folder 27, A2675.
19 F. Rueedi, ‘“They Would Remind You of 1960”: The Emergence of Radical Student Politics in the Vaal Triangle 1972–1985’, in A. Heffernan and N. Nieftagodien, eds, Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa before and beyond Soweto '76 (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2016), 138–139.
20 Interview with Murphy Morobe, Cambridge, MA, 4 May 1991, GG, WHP (I) Folder 25, A2675.
21 Author’s interview with Charles Mthombeni, Soweto, 30 November 2016. Paulo Freire was a radical Brazilian educator who believed the classroom, or any space where people were meeting to learn, was a place where social transformation could and should take place. He believed that education had to teach people to be free instead of becoming subject to an oppressive ideology or system. For more on his work see P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Continuum, New York and London, 2000, org. 1970).
22 Interview with Dr Diliza Mji, 2 June 1987, New York, GG (1–17) A2675 I (23), 3.
23 Author’s interview with Charles Mthombeni, 30 November 2016, Soweto.
24 V. Mafungo, Report on Seminar on Community Development (Involvement), July 1971(?), WHP (III) SASO Box 746, A2675; Commissions Presented at 3rd General Students’ Council of the South African Students’ Organisation: St. Peters; Seminary, Hammanskraal, 2–9 July 1972, WHP (III) SASO Box 750, A2675; Reports presented at the Federal Theological Seminary – Alice, 23–26 May 1974, WHP (III) SASO Box 755, A2675.
25 R. Shepherd, ‘The South African Bantu Education Act’, African Affairs, 54, 215 (1955), 138–142.
26 N. Dlamini, ‘The ANC Is the Answer’, Sechaba, 11 (2nd Quarter 1977), 25–37, NAHECS: ANC-SA/SACP Publications. Only later was her last name to change to Zuma, upon her marriage to Jacob Zuma.
27 O. Tiro, ‘Graduation Speech by O.R. Tiro at the University of the North’, in Karis and Gerhart, eds, From Protest to Challenge, 497–499.
28 Interview/discussion notes with Amos Masondo, Johannesburg, 5 July 1989, GG, WHP (I) Folder 20, A2675; Interview with Johnny Issel, Cape Town, 1 December 1989, TGK, WHP (I) Folder 13; Interview with Phumelele ‘Stone’ Sizani, New York City, 4 May 1990, GG/TK, WHP (I) Folder 34, A2675.
29 S. Biko, I Write What I Like (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002, org. 1978).
30 A. Cabral, Tell no lies, Claim no easy victories… 1965. https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1965/tnlcnev.htm (Accessed 6 July 2021).
31 T. Simpson, Umkhonto We Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle (Cape Town: Penguin Books, 2016).
32 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Harlow: Longman, 1983), 75–80; Interview with Comrade Chris Hani, Johannesburg, 23 and 31 March 1993 (interviewer Luli Callinicos, transcribed by Sheila Weinberg); R. Suttner, The ANC Underground in South Africa, 1950–1976 (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009), 18.
33 T. Simpson, ‘Military Combat Work: The Reconstitution of the ANC’s Armed Underground 1971–1976’, African Studies, 70, 1 (2011), 103–122.
34 D. Woods, Biko (New York and London: Paddington Press Ltd., 1978), 88–89; M. Ramphele, Across Boundaries: The Journey of a South African Woman Leader (New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1996), 108–112.
35 Interview with Malusi Mpumlwana, 18 July 1994, Johannesburg by GG; Woods, Biko, 104–105.
36 Simpson, ‘Military Combat Work’.
37 Interview with Billy Masetlha by Victoria Butler, February 1988, WHP (I) Folder 20, A2675.
38 Houston and Magubane, ‘ANC Political Underground in the 1970s’, 388–389.
39 Ibid., 393–395.
40 Interview/discussion notes with Amos Masondo, Johannesburg, 5 July 1989, GG, WHP (I) Folder 20, A2675.
41 Minutes of the First National Congress of the Black People’s Convention held at St. Peter’s Seminary, Hammanskraal, 16–17 December 1972, WHP (III) BPC Box 282, A2675.
42 Minutes of the Proceeding of the 4th General Students Council of the South African Students’ Organisation, St. Peter’s Seminary, WHP (III) SASO 753, A2675.
43 Author’s interview with Nosipho Matshoba, 13 August 2019, Johannesburg.
44 Asha Rambally ed., Black Review 1975–1976 (1977), WHP (III) Folder 273, A2675.
45 Shun Chetty and R. Alloway, compiler, ‘Accused Statements to Defence: Statement of the Accused (Skeleton)’, WHP State Versus JM Molokeng and 6 Others, File 1, A2, AK3334, 9.
46 Ibid.
47 Asheeke, ‘Arming Black Consciousness’, 69–88.
48 M. Mangena, Triumphs and Heartaches: A Courageous Journey by South African Patriots (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2015).
49 T. Lodge and B. Nasson, eds, All, Here, and Now: Black Politics in South Africa in the 1980s (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1991); G. Houston and B. Magubane, ‘The ANC Political Underground in the 1970s', in The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 4 [1970–1980], Parts 1 & 2 (Pretoria, UNISA Press, 2007).
50 Commissions presented at 5th General Students’ Council of the South African Students’ Organisation, St. Peters’ Seminary, Hammanskraal 14–18 January 1974, WHP (III) SASO Box 755, A2675; M. Mzamane, ‘The Impact of Black Consciousness on Culture’, in Pityana, Ramphele, Mpumlwana, and Wilson, eds, Bounds of Possibility, 179–193; B. Peterson, ‘Culture, Resistance and Representation’ in The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Vol. 2 [1970–1980] (Pretoria, UNISA Press, 2007), 161–185.
51 For more on this see my previous piece, T. Asheeke, ‘“Lost Opportunities”: The African National Congress of South Africa (ANC-SA)’s Evolving Relationship with the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in Exile, 1970–1979’, South African Historical Journal, 70, 3 (2018), 519–541.
52 For a brief list of recent Soweto Uprising literature see the following: N. Nieftagodien, The Soweto Uprising (Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2014); Heffernan and Nieftagodien, Students Must Rise; The Road to Democracy in South Africa: Volume 7: Soweto Uprisings: New Perspective, Commemorations and Memorialization (Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2017).
53 Brown, Road to Soweto.
54 Author’s interview with Malesela ‘Steve’ Lebello and Mlaura, Soweto, 2019.
55 B. Kwoba, R. Chantiluke and A. Nkopo, eds, Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (London: Zed Books, 2018).
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Toivo Asheeke
Toivo Asheeke’s research and teaching focuses on global black radical history, African liberation movements, race/racism, historical sociology, Black Atlantic/slavery studies and political economy. His manuscript titled Arming Black Consciousness: The Black Radical Tradition and South Africa’s Armed Struggle is in the process of being published (2022). This work uncovers the hidden role played by Black Nationalist political organising, working in interlocution with global Third World trends, during the fight against the settler colonial regime in South Africa. It seeks to expand our understanding of the different political motivations Black South Africans utilised to imagine and build a free South Africa/Azania. Currently he is conducting research on a similar project with the Zimbabwean liberation struggle.