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Black Initiatives for Change in Southern Africa*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2017
Extract
For generations, Blacks in southern Africa have tried one expedient after another to promote change in the highly discriminatory conditions under which they live. In choosing to concentrate in this lecture on certain specific approaches made in recent years by African and American Blacks to achieve this purpose, there is no intention of underrating these long and persistent attempts made in earlier periods and also by many others. Insofar as this paper is infused with a basic assumption, however, it is that Blacks must unite their efforts within and across national and continental boundaries and use the widest range of pressures if there is to be a chance of creating basic change in colonial and minority-ruled southern Africa.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © African Studies Association 1974
Footnotes
*
This article is a revised version of the Eleventh Melville J. Herskovits Memorial Lecture delivered by Gwendolen Carter on March 9, 1973 under the auspices of The Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University.
References
1 United States Foreign Policy: Africa. A study prepared at the request of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate by the Program of African Studies, Northwestern University (pursuant to S. Res. 336, 85th Cong, and S. Res. 31, 86th Cong.) No 4, October 23, 1959. Printed for the use of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1959), 84 pp.
2 following a critical June 1973 amendment to the NASA authorization bill sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, it was announced that NASA will close its tracking station in South Africa (said to be no longer needed) in September 1974.
3 The Gary Declaration: Black Politics at the Crossroads , National Black Political Agenda presented to the National Black Political Convention, Gary, Indiana, March 11, 1972, 12 pp., p. 8.
4 At the 1974 Black Political Convention, held in Little Rock, Arkansas, from March 15 to March 17, 1974, a series of proposed resolutions referring to liberation movements and southern Africa were consolidated into a single resolution. It called for United States recognition of Guinea-Bissau. It also pledged support “to all progressive liberation movements on the Afrikan continent, designated as such by the National Political Council, and especially the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), FRELIMO, and PAIGC, ” opposed “the United States’ intervention in Mozambique and other Afrikan countries and United States cooperation with other colonial and imperialistic oppressing nations, ” and affirmed the intention of seeking “to get UNITA, PAIGC, FRELIMO, and any other progressive liberation movements designated by the National Political Council, recognized by all progressive international bodies designated as such by the National Political Council.“
5 Strategy Workshops Report, African-American National Conference on Africa, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, May 26-27, 1972, Howard University, Washington, D.C., 37 pp.
6 Similar marches, in 1973 and 1974 have reaffirmed this support.
7 The lull text Is printed in Colin Legum and John Drysdale, eds., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents, 1969-70 , pp. C41-45.
8 Report of the Special Committee on Apartheid, General Assembly Official Records: Twenty-Seventh Session Supplement No. 22 (A/8722), p. 18.
9 The full text of the proposals (Cmd. 4835) is printed in Colin Legum, ed., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents, 1971-72 , pp. C144-53.
10 Following the March 1973 events the South African government removed its long-standing ban on strikes by Africans. Strikes are now permitted to opcur legally but only under prescribed conditions in nonessential employment and after an elaborate series of preliminary negotiations. It should be noted that despite notable restraint during the Durban outbreaks, the police killed eleven African miners and wounded many others at Western Deep Levels gold mine at Carletonville on September 11, 1973 when a wage dispute burgeoned into what was described as a riot.
11 Merwe, Hendrik W. van der and Welsh, David, eds., Student Perspectives on South Africa (Cape Town: David Philio. 1972). 229 pp. See pp. 174-202.Google Scholar
12 The Star, 7 April 1959.
13 In December 1973, the Senate voted to repeal the Byrd amendment which authorized the breaking of sanctions. The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 25 to 9 on June 27, 1974 to send the Bill (S1868) with no amendments to the House floor. The House vote is expected within the month.
14 Details contributed by Dennis Brutus have been most helpful in putting together this account.
15 A Time correspondent wrote at that time: “African countries have scored a major victory by unified action. If Africa were to learn a lesson by the capacity it has through such unified action and translate it into the political field and elsewhere, it could be of enormous significance for international affairs.“