The African National Congress and the policy of non-racialism: A study of the membership issue

Through an examination of the lengthy and highly contested debate over the issue of open membership of the African National Congress (ANC), the present article tests two propositions around the organisation's commitment to non-racialism. The one argues that non-racialism has been an enduring part of the ANC's culture--a so-called 'unbreakable thread'--since the ANC's formation in 1912, while the other argues that for years the ANC embraced a narrow and exclusive brand of African nationalism, and that its embrace of non-racialism came about only as a result of sustained struggle within largely the post-1960 exiled wing of the organisation.