GUM OF MECAlS LIBERATION STRUGGLE - KORA

12 The Gathering Rain Clouds
people. have made emphasis on a nonviolent approach, having judged
my people from the strike of 1950, they will certainly behave well."
In the meantime I had begun a correspondence with Professor Z.K.
Matthews, president of the Cape Province branch of the ANC and head of
African studies at the only university-level school for Africans in South
Africa, the University College of Fort Hare.
Referring to the tactic of nonviolence in the campaign, he wrote me
(March 13, rggz), ''Wt take great comfort from the fact that Gandhism
was born on South African soil. Through these same means India was able
to achieve a tremendous upsurge of consciousness of destiny among the
people of India."
At about this time I also began a correspondence with Manilal Gandhi,
a son of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who was still editing the publication Indim
Opinion, started by his father. My friend Donald Harrington, minister of
the Community Church in New York, who had known 1Clanilal, wrote to
me (February 25, 1952), "As you perhaps know, Manila1 Gandhi spent a
good dad of time with us here at Community Church while he was in New
York and we were deeply impressed with his immense spirituality and
saintly qualities. He is very much like his father, more so than any of the
other sons."
Gandhi wrote me (March 10,1952) that he was a "bit doubtful to what
extent our struggle is going to remain nonviolent, as those who hold the
reins are far from believers in the principles of nonviolence. . . . That is
why I have not aligned myself with their movement and am fighting my
own battle." At that time he was 3 days into a 21-day fast, but he advised
us that we "should certainly give [our] sympathy and moral support to the
cause and watch how things go."
AMERICANS FOR SOUTH AFRICAN RESISTANCE
In New York we felt we bad enough information about the Dhce
Campaign to make a decision on what to do. '4k decided to set up an ad
hoc support group for the campaign and adopted the name Americans for
South African Resistance (AFSAR). Donald Harrington and Charles Y.
Trigg, minister of the Salem Methodist Church of Harlem, were chosen as
cochakmen. I was secretary. The Executive Committee included Roger
Baldwin, Norman Thomas, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and
Conrad Lynn. Our task, as we conceived it, was to be a vehicle for
infomution about the campaign and to raise funds. The National Action
Committee in South Africa was calling for I million shillings (about
$rjo,wo) by the end of March.
Three questions about the ANC came up. First was the question of the
bona fide militancy of the organhtion. My friend Bill Worthy, a black
American journalist who had been active in antiwar and antisegregation
causes, wmte from Copenhagen in April, questioning whether CORE
money should go to the ANC. He had heard that it was opportunistic and