Days of Commitment Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #76)

large scale attempts to drive back the white man into the sea. Sporadic efforts were still to be made by organised groups and isolated individuals to resort to armed violence against the whites but, for the moment, the age of settling problems between blacks and whites by means of war belonged to the past. Nevertheless the black man's desire to win back his country and direct its destinies still burned as fiercely as before, and soon after the wars of dispossession, he was forging new weapons to voice his aspirations. A handful of small, regional, political organisations sprang up, all having as their main object the unity and freedom of each oppressed population group in a specified region. The oldest of the larger organisations that were to play a crucial role in the liberation struggle was the Natal Indian Congress, a constituent body of the South African Indian Congress, which was founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1894, followed in 1902 by Dr. Abdurahaman's African People Organisation. Although the APO was in theory non racial, in actual fact it became an organisation for Coloureds. But the most significant development in the black man's struggle through organised political action was the emergence in 1912 of the African National Congress, theoldest African national organisation in the country. Its emergence ws a landmark because the pivot of South African politics is, and has always been, the exact position of the African people in the country's political structure. A liberation movement which does not enjoy the support of the African masses is like waging a war without an army and only the involvement of the African people as a whole will give