African National Congress summary

Study the history of the African National Congress in South Africa and the leadership of Nelson Mandela

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see African National Congress.

African National Congress (ANC), South African political party and black nationalist organization. Founded in 1912 (as the South African Native National Congress), the ANC was long dedicated to the elimination of apartheid. In response to government massacres of demonstrators at Sharpeville (1960) and Soweto (1976), it carried out acts of sabotage and guerrilla warfare. The campaign was largely ineffective because of stringent South African internal security measures, including an official ban on the ANC between 1960 and 1990. In 1991, with the ban lifted, Nelson Mandela succeeded Oliver Tambo as ANC president. In 1994 the party swept the country’s first elections based on universal suffrage; the ANC led a coalition government that initially included members of its longtime rival, the National Party, and Mandela became South Africa’s president. In 1999 Thabo Mbeki replaced him as president of the ANC and of South Africa. In one of the most contentious leadership battles in the party’s history, Jacob Zuma was selected to succeed Mbeki as ANC president in 2007. Zuma was succeeded by Cyril Ramaphosa in 2017. See also Inkatha Freedom Party; Albert Lutuli; Pan-African movement.

racially restricted beach in apartheid-era South Africa

apartheid Summary

Apartheid, policy that governed relations between South Africa’s white minority and nonwhite majority for much of the latter half of the 20th century, sanctioning racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites. Although the legislation that formed the foundation of

Kenneth Kaunda Summary

Kenneth Kaunda was a politician who led Zambia to independence in 1964 and served as that country’s president until 1991. Kaunda’s father, who was from Nyasaland (now Malawi), was a schoolteacher; his mother, also a teacher, was the first African woman to teach in colonial Zambia. Both taught among

Nelson Mandela Summary

Nelson Mandela was a Black nationalist and the first Black president of South Africa (1994–99). His negotiations in the early 1990s with South African Pres. F.W. de Klerk helped end the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation and ushered in a peaceful transition to majority rule. Mandela

Jacob Zuma Summary

Jacob Zuma politician who served as president of South Africa from 2009 until he resigned under pressure in 2018. He also had served as the country’s deputy president (1999–2005) and as deputy president (1997–2007) and president (2007–17) of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress