'A Great Cause': The Origins of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, June 1959-March 1960

The Boycott Movement was initiated in June 1959 by exiled South African supporters of the Congress Movement with the aim of internationalizing the boycott campaign which the African and Indian Congresses had launched in South Africa. In South Africa the 1959 boycott campaign came at the end of a decade of intensifying repression which had closed off almost all peaceful means of protest against apartheid. In Britain, the late 1950s was a period of disillusion with mainstream politics. A network of organizations and individuals campaigned on three interlinked issues- peace and nuclear disarmament, racism and freedom for Britain's colonies, particularly in Africa. Working with organizations like the Movement for Colonial Freedom, Committee of African Organizations, Christian Action, the Africa Bureau and the Communist Party, a group of committed Congress Movement supporters joined by Patrick van Rensburg of the South African Liberal Party, worked within this network to launch a campaign for the boycott of South African goods. This culminated in a month of action in March 1960. It was taken up by the Labour Party, which had lost the October 1959 General Election and was split over nationalization and nuclear disarmament and by the Trades Union Council. To keep its broad base of support, the campaign stressed that it was a moral crusade of individual protest. The aim was to influence rather than overthrow the South African government. The situation was transformed by the shootings at Sharpeville, which led to the banning of the African National Congress and Pan-Africanist Congress. The Boycott Movement became the Anti-Apartheid Movement which in April 1960 called for international economic sanctions against South Africa.