African Activist Archive

Contents: BACKGROUND • THE LIBERATORY MOVEMENT • THE TREASON TRIAL • THE CHARGE • REFUTATION • WHAT HAVE THEY REALLY DONE? • GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY? • THE TREASON TRIAL SPECIAL COURT • LOCALE OF THE TRIAL • WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE TRIAL SO FAR? • TREASON TRIAL QUOTES • MESSAGES OF SUPPORT FROM THE WORLD • U.S. LABOR LOOKS AT THE TRIAL • WORLD SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TRIAL • FINANCES OF THE TREASON TRIAL • WHAT TO THE ACCUSED SAY? • WILL YOU HELP THESE GALLANT PEOPLE? • The newsletter says, on December 5, 1956, 156 leaders of the Liberatory Movement were arrested on a charge of High Treason. After a year-long preliminary examination that yielded an 8,000-page transcript, 12,000 documents, and reports on 600 meetings as evidence, the number of accused was reduced, first to 95 and then to 91. The newsletter notes that the dismissal of the first 61 came on December 17, 1957, just one week after a worldwide Day of Protest against the racial policies of South Africa had been observed in 21 countries. The 91 people still on trial include 59 Africans, 16 Caucasians, 14 Indians and 2 Coloreds; 5 of them are women. The charge is that they conspired to prepare a violent revolution leading to the overthrow of the State, and the replacement of the present State by a "communist state." The newsletter includes excerpts from a statement by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA, issued on May 1, 1958. The newsletter mentions the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress, the Colored People's Organization, the Congress of Democrats, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), a liberal white group, segregation, apartheid, Chief Albert J. Luthuli, Dean of Harvard Law School and American observer E.V. Griswold, the Old Synagogue in Pretoria, judges, Justice Ludorf, Justice Bekker, Justice Rumpff, Justice Kennedy, Dr. W.Z. Congo, the Treason Trial Fund, M.B. Yongwa, the Commission on Christian Social Relations of the First Methodist Church of Palo Alto, the South African Defense Fund, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the International Ladies Garment Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the Dining Car Employees Union, the Miscellaneous Culinary Employees, the Greater Los Angeles CIO Council, white domination, Ex-justice Lucas, Dr. Ellen Hellman, non-White trade unions, and the New York Times.

African Activist Archive

SOUTH AFRICA FREEDOM CALL

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