The Freedom Army Grows Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #146)

front there had come up an organisation we all regarded as the hair of the onse powerful APO, with fresh blood and brains, capable of rallying massive support and of organising vigorous struggles. SACOD, on the other hand, was inspired by the Defiance /campaign and its whole history, policy and activities bear all the characteristic features of that ancestry. Bram Fischer, Michael Harmel and other leading personalities who formed the organisation, consulted closely with the leaders of the ANC and SAIC and the inaugural meeting which launched the new body was addressed, amongst others, by Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and Yusuf Cachalia. SACOD works for full equality between white and black and its members constitute the politically advanced section of the whites in the country. They mingle fully with us in the course of our political work, organise and attend mixed mass meetings and take part in all kinds of demonstrations. Standing shoulder to shoulder with us, they shared heavy penalties that inevitably attend the difficult part of opposing white supremacy, when many oppressed choose to be neutral or even worse to co operate with the enemy. SACOD members have been banned, hounded out of good jobs, persecuted and beaten up by the police and even imprisoned. It was but natural that many communists, having been deprived of their own organisation when the CP was declared illegal in 1950, and keen to play their part in the fight for full racial equality, should have flocked to SACOD when it was formed. From the outset it had a fair percentage of members of the former CP. With the anti communist hysteria that has been assiduously propogated in our country, many whites who otherwise may have joined SACOD< includigng some of those