Then and now, Mandela and the ANC have been widely hailed as the heirs to a decades-long anti-apartheid struggle. But this legacy, one claimed by many ANC leaders themselves, was not a foregone conclusion. Throughout its century-long history, the ANC worked with and also jostled for political space alongside other movements, organizations, and individuals, each with their own vision of liberation. More recently the party has faced competition from other organizations and movements, including the Economic Freedom Fighters, whose recent electoral success has threatened the ANC’s majority. Defeating Apartheid and fending off challenges has frequently necessitated forging alliances. Some of the partners sought out by the ANC on its journey from revolutionary movement to governing power, including with American media and US corporations, have been more surprising than others and raise questions about the ANC’s claim as the primary heir to the anti-apartheid struggle.
Since its founding in 1912, the ANC (originally named the South African Native National Congress) has maintained ties with other organizations based outside South Africa. One of the earliest connections made by the ANC was with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), whose charter served as inspiration for the ANC’s charter. Such connections proved crucial in generating international support for the ANC and the anti-apartheid struggle. Shortly after the ANC’s banning in 1960, the NAACP called for a boycott of South African goods. The NAACP later expanded its call to include all US investments and loans to South Africa, urging the US government “to sever all economic, diplomatic, military, and cultural relationships with the racist regimes of Portugal, Rhodesia, and South Africa, and . . . extend recognition and aid to the . . . liberation movements of these areas.”
NAACP support notwithstanding, over the years, the ANC struggled to maintain support among Black Americans amid a rapidly changing domestic and global political landscape. Recalling an encounter with a Black American cab driver in New York City in 1974, ANC ambassador to the United Nations Johnny Makatini noted “the cabby realized his passenger wasn’t from the US, and asked where he was from.” An elated Makatini, who believed Black Americans would “constitute a natural ally” for the ANC began exclaiming about the ANC’s recent victory to expel South Africa from the UN. The cabby, however, interrupted him, saying, “No, I don’t agree with the communists,” referring to the ANC. The exchange, while hardly representative of Black Americans, who held wide-ranging and complex views on the ANC’s alliance with the Communist Party, sheds light on some of the challenges faced by the ANC in attracting American support amid the Cold War.