Building Relevance: The Blantyre Congress, 1953 to 1956

The years from 1953 to 1956 have been characterised by historians as a period in which the Nyasaland African Congress was moribund. Having failed to stop the imposition of the white-settler backed Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the party divided over whether or not to send representatives to sit in the Federal Parliament in Salisbury and its unity disintegrated. Some radicals even opted to leave and form opposition parties. While this deprived Congress leadership of important vigour and inspiration at the centre, it did not, as McCracken and others have argued, initiate 'the descent of Congress into political obscurity.' Were this so, it would be difficult to explain its rapid re-emergence, fully formed, in 1956. Using new evidence gleaned from extensive interviews with Congress activists, this paper argues that the crisis at the centre stimulated the emergence of a mass political movement. Congress branches reorganised around issues of local concern. The Blantyre branch forged important links with chiefs, women, workers and the poor of Blantyre. Congress was thus forced to deepen its roots in a manner that was conducive to its later growth as an exceptionally strong territorial movement.