Africa’s cause must triumph

The Class of `44’, the founders of the African National Congress Youth League (CYL) in 1944, includes a remarkable list of names: Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede, and Ashby Peter (A.P.) Mda. While much has been written on the others, relatively little attention has been paid to Mda, the Youth League president from 1947 to 1947 whom his peers regarded as the foremost political intellectual and strategist of their generation. He was known for his passionate advocacy of African nationalism, guiding the ANC into militant forms of protest, and pressing activists to consider turning to armed struggle in the early 1950s. In his late teens Mda began leaving a rich written record—through letters and essays in newspapers, political tracts and speeches, and letters to colleagues—that allows us to chart the evolution of his views throughout his life not only on politics but also on culture, language, literature, music, religion, and education.

Robert Edgar is Professor of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, the National University of Lesotho, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. He specialises in modern religious and political movements in southern Africa. Among his works are An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph Bunche (1992), African Apocalypse: The story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe (20) (co-authored with Hilary Sapire) and The Making of an African Communist: Edwin Mofutsanyana and the Communist Party of South Africa, 1927–1939 (26). He is currently co-editing a two-volume documentary history of African American relations with South Africa. Luyanda ka Msumza was born in King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape and completed high school at Mzomhle High School in 1976. After becoming involved in the student uprisings of the time, he went into exile in Lesotho in 1978. In 1982, he left for the United Kingdom where he was trained as an aircraft maintenance engineer at Oxford Air Training School, just outside Oxford. After returning to Lesotho, he worked for the Transformation Resources Centre until 1987 when he moved to Zimbabwe and Dares Salaam, Tanzania. He went to the United States where he received a Master of Science Degree in International Community Economic Development from New Hampshire College in 1988 and worked for a student organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Returning to South Africa in December 1990 after almost 13 years in exile, he enrolled for an Honours degree in History at the University of Cape Town which he received in 1993. Since then, he has worked for organisations on peace and development issues in various parts of South Africa. He is presently based in the United States.