Days of Commitment Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #79)

administrative autonomy for the French colonies and felt these territories should have a say in the reconstruction of the French political system after the war. The Second World War was still raging and the Nazis, whose atrocities were arousing intense revulsion throughout the world and focusing attention on the evils of racialism, were retreating on all fronts. These developments encouraged the hope that the world was moving away from oppressive systems of government, and that conditions would soon be created which would enable the ordinary man to develop his personality to the full. South African blacks had gone up North and saw other blacks carrying arms and defending the so called democratic way of life, returning home even more bitter about their own disabilities. It was also a time of acute shortage of houses and of intolerable conditions in the African townships where the vast majority of the people lived below subsistence level. It was under these conditions that the League was founded to mobilize the masses of the African youth into the organisation. I was a foundation member together with Anton Lembede (National President), Oliver Tambo (National Secretary), Walter Sisulu (Treasurer), Willie Nkomo (chairman of the Provisional Committee), Peter Mda, Jordaan Ngubane, Lionel Majombozi, Congress Mbata, Peter Borman and Msikinya. Branches were established in all the provinces and in 1948 I became the National Secretary, editor of its journal "The African Lodestar" and National President in 1951. Its creed was African Nationalism, and the creation of a united African nation out of the different tribes, the overthrow of white supremacy and the establishment of democratic forms of government