GUM OF MECAlS LIBERATION STRUGGLE - KORA

CHAPTER TWO
Nonviolent Fighters for Freedom
y introduction to the African liberation struggle began with the
M "Campaign to Defy Unjust Laws," sponsored by the African National
Congress of South Africa (ANC). The year was 1952. Word about
plans for a forthcoming, massive, nonviolent Defiance Campaign in South
Africa to resist the apartheid laws came to me from my friend and
coworker Bill Sutherland. He was excited about the campaign, which he
had learned about from a South African editor whom he had met in
London. Sutherland and I were both pacifists and had worked together on
numerous projects to combat segregation in the United States by nonviolent
methods. His opinions meant a lot to me.
Nevertheless, my first reaction to Sutherland's enthusiastic reports and
urging us to active support was hesitant. A lot was going on right here at
home. I felt overwhelmed with existing commitments and was not eager to
take on new ones. Sutherland's persistence had its effect, however. Somewhat
protestingly at first, I began to reach out for more information, and
together he and I, along with Bayard Rustin, began to pIan a program.
INITIAL CONTACTS
As executive secretary of CORE, I began to correspond with leaders of the
South African campaign-Walter M. Sisulu, the secretary general of the
ANC, and Yusuf A. Cachalia, secretary general of the South African
Indian Congress (SAIC). The Defiance Campaign was a coalition effort,
primarily of Africans and Indians, with some participation from the
Coloured community through the Franchise Action Council. Sisulu wrote
me (March 26,1952), "Your letter of the 17th of March has been a source
of great inspiration to me. I am very delighted to learn that yow organiza-
tion [CORE] has taken such a great interest in the struggle for fundamen-
tal human rights by my organization."
Up to this time I had only rudimentary knowledge about South Africa.
I had read Alan Paton's Cw the Beloved Counny. I was acquainted with
Mohandas K. Gandhi's work in South Africa (1893-1914) and his experi-
ments with nonviolent tactics in combatting discrimination against the
Lndian minority there. I knew that the Indians, who had come in 1868 as
indentured workers in the sugar cane fields, numbered only a few hundred
thousand out of a population of less than 15 million. I learned that in 1952
the Afrikaners were to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the coming of