African Activist Archive

Article in the newsletter FELLOWSHIP published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation consisting of a text of a memorial was presented at Canaan Baptist Church, May 22, 2003. The article says it was more than fifty years ago, in 1952, prompted by my friend Bill Sutherland, that U wrote a letter on the stationary of the Congress of Racial Equality to Walter Sisulu, the fairly new Secretary General of the African National Congress, asking if we could do anything to support their nonviolent Defiance Campaign against the apartheid laws of South Africa; his response was immediate and enthusiastic, inviting us to help with publicity and fundraising for family relief of those arrested and for legal defense; thus was born Americans for South African Resistance and following it, the American Committee On Africa. The article says I did not meet Walter personally until 1954, on my first trip to Africa; I visited him at his home in Orlando West, now part of Soweto--the same home he returned to in 1989 when he was released from life imprisonment in Robben Island. The article discusses Herbert Shore, the Congress of the People, the African National Congress (ANC), the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), the liberation cause, the Freedom Charter, the Rivonia trial, apartheid, Dr. Xuma, Albertina Sisulu, the Bantu World, leaflets, Johannesburg Central Prison, Premier Biscuits, wages, the Tans-Siberian Railroad, humor, Russia, China, Duma Nokwe, Dar es Salaam, the Special Branch, Nelson Mandela, Hector Peterson, the Soweto Uprising, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the Orlando Musical Association, South African Broadcasting, Govan Mbeki, the death penalty, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the Treason Trail, a pass, race, police, the Journey of Reconciliation, the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), and I Will Go Singing.

African Activist Archive

REMEMBERING WALTER SISULU

Creator

Place Created

Date

Type of Item

Length/duration

Description

Publisher

Organization

Coverage Africa

Language

Digital Format

Rights Management

Collection