Contingent solidarities: the African National Congress in exile in 1960s Dar es Salaam

This article unearths the everyday experience of exile for the African National Congress (ANC) in 1960s Dar es Salaam as one among many interlocking narratives linking the Cold War to decolonization. After domestic ANC structures were crushed and banned following the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, the ANC went into exile and established its first headquarters in Dar es Salaam, under the banner of President Julius Nyerere’s Pan-African diplomacy. Using a multiarchival approach, this article links together memoirs by ANC actors, files from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, and diplomatic records from U.K. and U.S. national archives to craft a narrative of “contingent solidarities” between the Tanzanian state and the African National Congress. It explores the tension between the political solidarity espoused by the Tanzanian state in support of Southern African liberation and the conflicts that arose between the ANC and its hosts. It adds texture and complexity to the standard story of Dar es Salaam as a radical hub by examining the ANC in exile as one of multiple emancipatory projects of the global Sixties. Finally, it distills forms of contingent solidarity that arose in the ANC’s everyday experience of anti-apartheid organizing from Dar es Salaam.