South African President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrates during the ANC’s 114th anniversary celebration at the Moruleng Stadium in Rustenburg on January 10, 2026. (Photo by PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP) The ANC is widely known throughout South Africa, and maybe the world, but the essence of this organisation has been lost over the 114 years of its existence. Initially, this organisation was known as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) and it was founded by enlightened Africans who wielded some influence in their communities.
This included preachers, teachers, chiefs and well-learned, influential black people. An argument could be made that most of them were Christianised Africans who had received missionary education and were determined to make a difference in their communities. The brain behind the historic meeting in 1912 was Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who studied at Columbia University in New York and at Oxford University in the UK.
For a black man of his time, he was extremely educated. According to some historians, Seme had an American accent, he was charismatic and his arguments in court sometimes stunned the South African white authorities. When Seme arrived in the US in 1889 for his studies, he was received by his uncle John Dube, who would later become the first president of the SANNC at its foundation meeting in Bloemfontein.
Read Full Article on The Citizen
[paywall]
The meeting in 1912 had a clear agenda, blacks had to fight for their space in the new Union of South Africa that was formed in 1910 and they wanted full rights as citizens. So, for at least the first four decades of this organisation, there was no radical attitude towards the white regime, it participated in peaceful demonstrations, petitions and so on.
[/paywall]
