The Defiance Campaign Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #111)

campaign we could make an even greater assault on apartheid. The idea immediately appealed to me and I readily accepted. However we differed on the important question on who should take part in such a campaign. It seemed to me that an exclusivley African campaign, planned and directed by Africans and relying on screened African volunteers only would be far better than a joint one. I felt that in spite of good progress we had made, the social conditions still tended to make the average African cautious of joint action and that a purely African resistance movement would attract greater support. I considered that in due course closer contact between the racial groups and experience would remove all suspicion and our people would warmly welcome mixed campaigns. But I feared that joint campaigns where Africans had few literate and properly trained men and where they lacked economic resources and influential contacts could give to minorities enjoying these adventages an influence out of proportion to their numbers. I pointed out that confronted with political actions by Africans, our enemies would find it difficult to use propaganda that we were merely being incited by other groups and concluded by stressing the immense material and psychological advantages to the liberation movement as a whole of an African leadership that continued to challenge the government by organising successful campaigns on its own initiative and resources. Walter contended on the other hand, that it would be inadvisable for us to launch a purely African campaign first because the 1947 agreement bound us to work together on matters of common interest and the contemplated campaign fell into this category. He added that on June 26th 1950 we