The Congress of the People

The Congress of the People meet at the Kliptown football ground with 3,000 delegates. The congress of the People were made up out of four member-bodies, the A.N.C., the Indian Congress, the Coloured Peoples Organisation and the Congress of Democrats. The Freedom Charter, which the Congress of the People adopted on June 26, were read and signed by delegates. Many speakers on the Freedom Charter, sounded the note that the day might not be far off when its demands would be met; the road might be long, but a united democratic front was the only solution. A.N.C president Albert Luthuli, in his message read to the Congress, said among other things that "it should have been plain to the architicts of Union that by excluding from the orbit of democracy the majority of the population, the non-whites, they were laying a false foundation for the new state and making a mockery of democracy to call such a state democrat