The First Meeting to Free Men

On 8 January 1912 the first meeting of what would become the seminal anti-apartheid organization was held in Waaihoek, South Africa.

The South African Native National Congress would become the African National Congress in 1923 and would later become known as the party of Nelson Mandela.  

The men (and one woman) who founded the organization were highly educated and extremely motivated to improve the lives of those living in South Africa.  The first black African lawyer, the first black African woman to earn a college degree, a polyglot translator of Shakespeare, authors; they agitated for the rights of black Africans within South Africa and abroad.

To learn about the founding of the SANNC and the ANC, please read our article Eighty Years to Change the World.