Black Consciousness Movement
Encyclopedia
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots
anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa
in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum
created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress
and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre
in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness
.
"Black Consciousness origins were deeply rooted in Christianity
. In 1966, the Anglican Church under the incumbent, Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor
, convened a meeting which later on led to the foundation of the University Christian Movement (UCM). This was to become the vehicle for Black Consciousness."
The BCM attacked what they saw as traditional white values, especially the 'condescending' values of white people of liberal
opinion. They refused to engage white liberal opinion on the pros and cons of black consciousness, and emphasized the rejection of white monopoly
on truth
as a central tenet of their movement. While this philosophy at first generated disagreement amongst black anti-Apartheid activists within South Africa, it was soon adopted by most as a positive development. As a result, there emerged a greater cohesiveness and solidarity amongst black groups in general, which in turn brought black consciousness to the forefront of the anti-Apartheid struggle within South Africa.
The BCM's policy of perpetually challenging the dialectic of Apartheid South Africa as a means of conscientizing Black thought (rejecting prevailing opinion or mythology to attain a larger comprehension) brought it into direct conflict with the full force of the security apparatus of the Apartheid regime. "Black man, you are on your own" became the rallying cry as mushrooming activity committees implemented what was to become a relentless campaign of challenge to what was then referred to by the BCM as 'the System'. It eventually sparked a confrontation on June 16, 1976 in the Soweto uprising, when at least 200 people were killed by the South African Security Forces, as students marched to protest the use of the Afrikaans
language in African schools. Unrest spread like wildfire throughout the country. The Black revolution in South Africa had begun.
However, although it successfully implemented a system of comprehensive local committees to facilitate organized resistance, the BCM itself was decimated by security action taken against its leaders and social programs. By June 19, 1976, 123 key members had been banned and confined to remote rural districts. In 1977 all BCM related organizations were banned, many of its leaders arrested, and their social programs dismantled under provisions of the newly Implemented Internal Security Amendment Act. In September 1977, its banned National Leader, Steve Biko
, was murdered while in the custody of the South African Security Police.
, a black medical student
, and Barney Pityana
. During this period, the ANC
had committed to an armed struggle through its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
, but this small guerrilla
army was neither able to seize and hold territory in South Africa nor to win significant concessions through its efforts. The ANC had been banned by apartheid leaders, and although the famed Freedom Charter
remained in circulation in spite of attempts to censor it, for many students the ANC had disappeared.
The term Black Consciousness stems from American educator W. E. B. Du Bois's evaluation of the double consciousness
of American blacks being taught what they feel inside to be lies about the weakness and cowardice of their race. Du Bois echoed Civil War
era black nationalist Martin Delany
's insistence that black people take pride in their blackness as an important step in their personal liberation. This line of thought was also reflected in the Pan Africanist, Marcus Garvey
, as well as Harlem Renaissance
philosopher Alain Locke and in the salons of the Nardal sisters in Paris. Biko's understanding of these thinkers was further shaped through the lens of postcolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon
, Léopold Senghor, and Aimé Césaire
. Biko reflects the concern for the existential struggle of the black person as a human being, dignified and proud of his blackness, in spite of the oppression of colonialism (see Négritude
). The aim of this global movement of black thinkers was to restore black consciousness and African consciousness, which they felt had been suppressed under colonialism
.
Part of the insight of the Black Consciousness Movement was in understanding that black liberation would not only come from imagining and fighting for structural political changes, as older movements like the ANC did, but also from psychological transformation in the minds of black people themselves. This analysis suggested that to take power, black people had to believe in the value of their blackness. That is, if black people believed in democracy, but did not believe in their own value, they would not truly be committed to gaining power.
Along these lines, Biko saw the struggle to restore African consciousness as having two stages, "Psychological liberation" and "Physical liberation". While at times Biko embraced the non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi
and Martin Luther King, this was not because Biko fully embraced their spiritually-based philosophies of non-violence. Rather, Biko knew that for his struggle to give rise to physical liberation, it was necessary that it exist within the political and military realities of the apartheid regime, in which the armed power of the white government outmatched that of the black majority. Therefore Biko's non-violence may be seen more as a tactic than a personal conviction. However, along with political action, a major component of the Black Consciousness Movement was its Black Community Programs, which included the organization of community medical clinics, aiding entrepreneurs, and holding "consciousness" classes and adult education literacy classes.
Another important component of psychological liberation was to embrace blackness by insisting that black people lead movements of black liberation. This meant rejecting the fervent "non-racialism" of the ANC in favor of asking whites to understand and support, but not to take leadership in, the Black Consciousness Movement. A parallel can be seen in the United States, where student leaders of later phases of SNCC
, and black nationalists such as Malcolm X
, rejected white participation in organizations that intended to build black power
. While the ANC viewed white participation in its struggle as part of enacting the non-racial future for which it was fighting, the Black Consciousness view was that even well-intentioned white people often reenacted the paternalism of the society in which they lived. This view held that in a profoundly racialized society, black people had to first liberate themselves and gain psychological, physical and political power for themselves before "non-racial" organizations could truly be non-racial.
Biko's BCM had much in common with other left-wing African nationalist movements of the time, such as Amilcar Cabral
's PAIGC
and Huey Newton's Black Panther Party
.
of March 21, 1960 caused many blacks to embrace the idea of violent resistance to apartheid. However, although the ANC's armed wing started its campaign in 1961, no victory was in sight by the time that Steve Biko was a medical student in the late nineteen-sixties. Even as the nation's leading opposition groups like the ANC proclaimed a commitment to armed struggle, their leaders had failed to organize a credible military effort. If their commitment to revolution had inspired many, the success of the white regime in quashing it had dampened the spirits of many.
It was in this context that black students, Biko most notable among them, began critiquing the liberal whites with whom they worked in anti-apartheid student groups, as well as the official non-racialism of the ANC. They saw progress towards power as requiring the development of black power distinct from supposedly "non-racial groups."
This new Black Consciousness Movement not only called for resistance to the policy of Apartheid, freedom of speech
, and more rights for South African blacks who were oppressed by the white Apartheid regime
, but also black pride
and a readiness to make blackness, rather than simple liberal democracy, the rallying point of unapologetically black organizations. Importantly, the group defined black to include other "people of color" in South Africa, most notably the large number of South Africans of Indian
descent. The movement stirred many blacks to confront not only the legal but also the cultural and psychological realities of Apartheid, seeking "not black visibility but real black participation" in society and in political struggles.
The gains this movement made were widespread across South Africa. Many black people felt a new sense of pride about being black as the movement helped to expose and critique the inferiority complex felt by many blacks at the time. The group formed Formation Schools to provide leadership seminars, and placed a great importance on decentralization and autonomy, with no person serving as president for more than one year (although Biko was clearly the primary leader of the movement). Early leaders of the movement such as Bennie Khoapa
, Barney Pityana
, Mapetla Mohapi, and Mamphela Ramphele
joined Biko in establishing the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in 1970 as self-help groups for black communities, forming out of the South African Council of Churches
and the Christian Institute. They also published various journals, including the Black Review, Black Voice, Black Perspective, and Creativity in Development.
On top of building schools and day cares and taking part in other social projects, the BCM through the BCP was involved in the staging of the large scale protests and workers strikes which gripped the nation in 1972 and 1973, especially in Durban
. Indeed, in 1973 the government of South Africa began to clamp down on the movement, claiming that their ideas of black development were treasonous, and virtually the entire leadership of SASO and BPC were banned. In late August and September 1974, after holding rallies in support of the Frelimo government which had taken power in Mozambique
, many leaders of the BCM were arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. Arrests under these laws allowed the suspension of the doctrine of habeas corpus
, and many of those arrested were not formally charged until the next year, resulting in the arrest of the "Pretoria Twelve" and conviction of the "SASO nine", which included Maitshe Mokoape and Patrick Lekota
. These were the most prominent among various public trials which gave a forum for members of the BCM to explain their philosophy and to describe the abuses that had been inflicted upon them. Far from crushing the movement, this led to its wider support among black and white South Africans.
in June 1976. The protests began when it was decreed that black students be forced to learn Afrikaans
, and that many secondary school classes were to be taught in that language. This was another encroachment against the black population, which generally spoke indigenous languages like Zulu
and Xhosa
at home, and saw English
as offering more prospects for mobility and economic self-sufficiency than did Afrikaans
. And the notion that Afrikaans was to define the national identity stood directly against the BCM principle of the development of a unique black identity. The protest began as a non-violent demonstration before police opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds of youths.
The government's efforts to suppress the growing movement led to the imprisonment of Steve Biko, who became a symbol of the struggle. Biko died in police custody on September 12, 1977. It should be noted that Steve Biko was a non-violent activist, even though the movement he helped start eventually took up violent resistance. White newspaper editor Donald Woods
supported the movement and Biko, whom he had befriended, by leaving South Africa and exposing the truth behind Biko's death at the hands of police by publishing the book Biko.
One month after Biko's death, the South African government declared 17 groups associated with the Black Consciousness Movement to be illegal. Following this, many members joined more concretely political and tightly-structured parties such as the ANC, which used underground cells to maintain their organizational integrity despite banning by the government. And it seemed to some that the key goals of Black Consciousness had been attained, in that black identity and psychological liberation were growing. Nonetheless, in the months following Biko's death, activists continued to hold meetings to discuss resistance. Along with members of the BCM, a new generation of activists who had been inspired by the Soweto riots and Biko's death were present, including Bishop Desmond Tutu
. Among the organizations that formed in these meetings to carry the torch of Black Consciousness was the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) which persists to this day.
Almost immediately after the formation of AZAPO in 1978, its chairman, Ishmael Mkhabela, and secretary, Lybon Mabasa were detained under the Terrorism Act. In the following years, other groups sharing Black Consciousness principles formed, including the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Azanian Student Organization (AZASO) and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization (PEBCO).
While many of these organizations still exist in some form, some evolved and could no longer be called parts of the Black Consciousness Movement. And as the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement itself waned, the ANC was returning to its role as the clearly leading force in the resistance to white rule. Still more former members of the Black Consciousness Movement continued to join the ANC, including Thozamile Botha
from PEBCO.
Others formed new groups. For instance, in 1980, Pityana formed the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), an avowedly Marxist
group which used AZAPO as its political voice. Curtis Nkondo
from AZAPO and many members of AZASO and the Black Consciousness Media Workers Association joined the United Democratic Front
(UDF). Many groups published important newsletters and journals, such as the Kwasala of the Black Consciousness Media Workers and the London
based BCMA journal, Solidarity.
And beyond these groups and media outlets, the Black Consciousness Movement had an extremely broad legacy, even as the movement itself was no longer represented by a single organization.
While the Black Consciousness Movement itself spawned an array of smaller groups, many people who came of age as activists in the Black Consciousness Movement did not join them. Instead, they joined a other organizations, including the ANC, the Unity Movement, the Pan Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front
and trade and civic unions.
The Black Consciousness Movement's most-lasting legacy is as an intellectual movement. The weakness of theory in and of itself to mobilize constituencies can be seen in AZAPO's inability to win significant electoral support in modern-day South Africa. But the strength of the ideas can be seen in the diffusion of Black Consciousness language and strategy into nearly every corner of black South African politics.
In fact, these ideas helped make the complexity of the South African black political world, which can be so daunting to the newcomer or the casual observer, into a strength. As the government tried to act against this organization or that one, people in many organizations shared the general ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement, and these ideas helped to organize action beyond any specific organizational agenda. If the leader of this group or that one was thrown into prison, nonetheless, more and more black South Africans agreed on the importance of black leadership and active resistance. Partly as a result, the difficult goal of unity in struggle became more and more realized through the late nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties.
Biko and the legacy of the Black Consciousness movement helped give the resistance a culture of fearlessness. And its emphasis on individual psychological pride helped ordinary people realize they could not wait for distant leaders (who were often exiled or in prison) to liberate them. As the ANC's formal armed wing Umkhonto weSizwe struggled to make gains, this new fearlessness became the basis of a new battle in the streets, in which larger and larger groups of ordinary and often unarmed people confronted the police and the army more and more aggressively. If the ANC could not defeat the white government's massive army with small bands of professional guerrilla fighters, it was able to eventually win power through ordinary black peoples' determination to make South Africa ungovernable by a white government. What could not be achieved by men with guns was accomplished by teenagers throwing stones. While much of this later phase of the struggle was not undertaken under the formal direction of Black Consciousness groups per se, it was certainly fueled by the spirit of Black Consciousness. Kashy Singh(2005) had said that black people are equal to all other human beings
Even after the end of apartheid, Black Consciousness politics live on in community development projects and "acts of dissent
" staged both to bring about change and to further develop a distinct black identity.
Criticisms of the Movement sometimes mirror similar observations of the Black Consciousness Movement in the United States. (See reference to Fredrickson's comparative work below). On one side, it was argued that the Movement would stagnate into black racialism, aggravate racial tensions and attract repression by the apartheid regime. Other detractors thought the Movement based heavily on student idealism, but with little grassroots support among the masses, and few consistent links to the mass trade-union movement. (See Columbia reference below)
Assessments of the movement (See Gerhard references below) note that it failed to achieve several of its key objectives. It did not bring down the apartheid regime, nor did its appeal to other non-white groups as "people of color" gain much traction. Its focus on blackness as the major organizing principle was very much downplayed by Nelson Mandela and his successors who to the contrary emphasized the multi-racial balance needed for the post-apartheid nation. The community programs fostered by the movement were very small in scope and were subordinated to the demands of protest and indoctrination. It's leadership and structure was essentially liquidated, and it failed to bridge the tribal gap in any *large-scale* way, although certainly small groups and individuals collaborated across tribes.
After much blood shed and property destroyed, critics charged that the Movement did nothing more than raise 'awareness' of some issues, while accomplishing little in the way of sustained mass organization, or of practical benefit for the masses. Some detractors also assert that Black consciousness ideas are out-dated, hindering the new multi-racial South Africa. (See Gerhard reference 1997 below).
Defenders of the movement argued that blackness was the best, most energetic organizing principle that was available at the time, in contrast to laborious legal, non-violent and petition based integrationist approach used by white dominated moderate groups.
Biko made no bones about the 'consciousness' aspect of the movement and in this limited respect he is similar to Huey P. Newton
of the Black Panthers in the United States. What was important to Biko and other leaders, was not creating yet another political party or group squabbling over local spoils, but a fundamental mobilization and change in attitude and outlook of the black oppressed and destitute. Some contemporary BCM leaders claim that its principles are currently relevant and decry what they see as evidence of 'sellout' in the new South Africa. (See AZAPO reference below).
movement in the United States
, the Black Consciousness movement felt little need to reconstruct any sort of golden cultural heritage. African linguistic
and cultural
traditions were alive and well in the country. Short stories published predominantly in Drum magazine
had led to the 1950s being called the Drum decade, and future Nobel Prize
winner Nadine Gordimer
was beginning to become active. The fallout from the Sharpeville massacre led to many of those artists entering exile, but the political oppression of the resistance itself led to a new growth of black South African Literature. In the 1970s, Staffrider
magazine became the dominant forum for the publication of BC literature, mostly in the form of poetry and short stories. Book clubs, youth associations, and clandestine street-to-street exchange became popular. Various authors explored the Soweto riots
in novels, including Miriam Tlali
, Mothobi Mutloatse and Mbulelo Mzamane. But the most compelling force in Black Consciousness prose was the short story, now adapted to teach political morals. Mtutuzeli Matshoba famously wrote, "Do not say to me that I am a man." An important theme of Black Consciousness literature was the rediscovery of the ordinary, which can be used to describe the work of Njabulo Ndebele
.
However, it was in poetry that the Black Consciousness Movement first found its voice. In a sense, this was a modern update of an old tradition, since several of South Africa's African languages had long traditions of performed poetry. Sipho Sempala, Mongane Serote, and Mafika Gwala
led the way, although Sempala turned to prose after Soweto. Serote wrote from exile of his internalization of the struggles, while Gwala's work was informed and inspired by the difficulty of life in his home township of Mpumalanga near Durban
. These forerunners inspired a myriad of followers, most notably poet-performance artist Ingoapele Madingoane.
James Mathews
was a part of the Drum decade who was especially influential to the Black Consciousness Movement. This poem gives an idea of the frustrations that blacks felt under apartheid:
This poem by an unknown author has a rather confrontational look:
steve biko the hero
Mandlenkosi Langa's poem: "Banned for Blackness" also calls for black resistance :
A main tenet of the Black Consciousness Movement itself was the development of black culture, and thus black literature. The cleavages in South African society were real, and the poets and writers of the BCM saw themselves as spokespersons for blacks in the country. They refused to be beholden to proper grammar and style, searching for black aesthetics and black literary values. The attempt to awaken a black cultural identity was thus inextricably tied up with the development of black literature.
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum
Power vacuum
A power vacuum is, in its broadest sense, an expression for a condition that exists when someone has lost control of something and no one has replaced them. It is usually used to refer to a political situation that can occur when a government has no identifiable central authority...
created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre
Sharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness
Political consciousness
Following the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx outlined the workings of a political consciousness.-The politics of consciousness:...
.
"Black Consciousness origins were deeply rooted in Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. In 1966, the Anglican Church under the incumbent, Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor
Bishop of Grahamstown
The Bishop of Grahamstown is the bishop of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa in the Diocese of Grahamstown, which encompasses the area around Grahamstown, South Africa and is located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The seat of the Bishop is St. Michael and St. George...
, convened a meeting which later on led to the foundation of the University Christian Movement (UCM). This was to become the vehicle for Black Consciousness."
The BCM attacked what they saw as traditional white values, especially the 'condescending' values of white people of liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
opinion. They refused to engage white liberal opinion on the pros and cons of black consciousness, and emphasized the rejection of white monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
on truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
as a central tenet of their movement. While this philosophy at first generated disagreement amongst black anti-Apartheid activists within South Africa, it was soon adopted by most as a positive development. As a result, there emerged a greater cohesiveness and solidarity amongst black groups in general, which in turn brought black consciousness to the forefront of the anti-Apartheid struggle within South Africa.
The BCM's policy of perpetually challenging the dialectic of Apartheid South Africa as a means of conscientizing Black thought (rejecting prevailing opinion or mythology to attain a larger comprehension) brought it into direct conflict with the full force of the security apparatus of the Apartheid regime. "Black man, you are on your own" became the rallying cry as mushrooming activity committees implemented what was to become a relentless campaign of challenge to what was then referred to by the BCM as 'the System'. It eventually sparked a confrontation on June 16, 1976 in the Soweto uprising, when at least 200 people were killed by the South African Security Forces, as students marched to protest the use of the Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
language in African schools. Unrest spread like wildfire throughout the country. The Black revolution in South Africa had begun.
However, although it successfully implemented a system of comprehensive local committees to facilitate organized resistance, the BCM itself was decimated by security action taken against its leaders and social programs. By June 19, 1976, 123 key members had been banned and confined to remote rural districts. In 1977 all BCM related organizations were banned, many of its leaders arrested, and their social programs dismantled under provisions of the newly Implemented Internal Security Amendment Act. In September 1977, its banned National Leader, Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
, was murdered while in the custody of the South African Security Police.
Early Worldview of Native Africans
The Black Consciousness Movement started to develop during the late 1960s, and was led by Steve BikoSteve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
, a black medical student
Medical Student
Medical Student may refer to:*Someone studying at medical school*Medical Student Newspaper, a UK publication...
, and Barney Pityana
Barney Pityana
Nyameko Barney Pityana FKC is a human rights lawyer and theologian in South Africa. He is an exponent of Black theology....
. During this period, the ANC
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
had committed to an armed struggle through its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
, but this small guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
army was neither able to seize and hold territory in South Africa nor to win significant concessions through its efforts. The ANC had been banned by apartheid leaders, and although the famed Freedom Charter
Freedom Charter
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies - the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress...
remained in circulation in spite of attempts to censor it, for many students the ANC had disappeared.
The term Black Consciousness stems from American educator W. E. B. Du Bois's evaluation of the double consciousness
Double consciousness
Double consciousness, in its contemporary sense, is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets...
of American blacks being taught what they feel inside to be lies about the weakness and cowardice of their race. Du Bois echoed Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
era black nationalist Martin Delany
Martin Delany
Martin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. He became the first African-American field officer in the United...
's insistence that black people take pride in their blackness as an important step in their personal liberation. This line of thought was also reflected in the Pan Africanist, Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
, as well as Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
philosopher Alain Locke and in the salons of the Nardal sisters in Paris. Biko's understanding of these thinkers was further shaped through the lens of postcolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
, Léopold Senghor, and Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
. Biko reflects the concern for the existential struggle of the black person as a human being, dignified and proud of his blackness, in spite of the oppression of colonialism (see Négritude
Négritude
Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
). The aim of this global movement of black thinkers was to restore black consciousness and African consciousness, which they felt had been suppressed under colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
.
Part of the insight of the Black Consciousness Movement was in understanding that black liberation would not only come from imagining and fighting for structural political changes, as older movements like the ANC did, but also from psychological transformation in the minds of black people themselves. This analysis suggested that to take power, black people had to believe in the value of their blackness. That is, if black people believed in democracy, but did not believe in their own value, they would not truly be committed to gaining power.
Along these lines, Biko saw the struggle to restore African consciousness as having two stages, "Psychological liberation" and "Physical liberation". While at times Biko embraced the non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
and Martin Luther King, this was not because Biko fully embraced their spiritually-based philosophies of non-violence. Rather, Biko knew that for his struggle to give rise to physical liberation, it was necessary that it exist within the political and military realities of the apartheid regime, in which the armed power of the white government outmatched that of the black majority. Therefore Biko's non-violence may be seen more as a tactic than a personal conviction. However, along with political action, a major component of the Black Consciousness Movement was its Black Community Programs, which included the organization of community medical clinics, aiding entrepreneurs, and holding "consciousness" classes and adult education literacy classes.
Another important component of psychological liberation was to embrace blackness by insisting that black people lead movements of black liberation. This meant rejecting the fervent "non-racialism" of the ANC in favor of asking whites to understand and support, but not to take leadership in, the Black Consciousness Movement. A parallel can be seen in the United States, where student leaders of later phases of SNCC
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
, and black nationalists such as Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, rejected white participation in organizations that intended to build black power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
. While the ANC viewed white participation in its struggle as part of enacting the non-racial future for which it was fighting, the Black Consciousness view was that even well-intentioned white people often reenacted the paternalism of the society in which they lived. This view held that in a profoundly racialized society, black people had to first liberate themselves and gain psychological, physical and political power for themselves before "non-racial" organizations could truly be non-racial.
Biko's BCM had much in common with other left-wing African nationalist movements of the time, such as Amilcar Cabral
Amílcar Cabral
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and politician. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence...
's PAIGC
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde
The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde or PAIGC is a political party that governed Guinea-Bissau from the independence of the then Portuguese Guinea in 1974, until the late 1990s, and from 2004 to 2005. Currently it is the party with the largest number of seats in the...
and Huey Newton's Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
.
Early years: 1960-1976
Although the ANC and others opposed to apartheid had initially focused on non-violent campaigns, the brutality of the Sharpeville MassacreSharpeville massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in the Transvaal . After a day of demonstrations, at which a crowd of black protesters far outnumbered the police, the South African police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69...
of March 21, 1960 caused many blacks to embrace the idea of violent resistance to apartheid. However, although the ANC's armed wing started its campaign in 1961, no victory was in sight by the time that Steve Biko was a medical student in the late nineteen-sixties. Even as the nation's leading opposition groups like the ANC proclaimed a commitment to armed struggle, their leaders had failed to organize a credible military effort. If their commitment to revolution had inspired many, the success of the white regime in quashing it had dampened the spirits of many.
It was in this context that black students, Biko most notable among them, began critiquing the liberal whites with whom they worked in anti-apartheid student groups, as well as the official non-racialism of the ANC. They saw progress towards power as requiring the development of black power distinct from supposedly "non-racial groups."
This new Black Consciousness Movement not only called for resistance to the policy of Apartheid, freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, and more rights for South African blacks who were oppressed by the white Apartheid regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
, but also black pride
Black pride
Black pride is a slogan indicating pride in being black. Related movements include black nationalism and Afrocentrism.The slogan has been used in the United States by African Americans to celebrate heritage and personal pride. The black pride movement is closely linked with the developments of the...
and a readiness to make blackness, rather than simple liberal democracy, the rallying point of unapologetically black organizations. Importantly, the group defined black to include other "people of color" in South Africa, most notably the large number of South Africans of Indian
Asians in South Africa
The majority of the Asian South African population is Indian in origin, most of them descended from indentured workers transported to work in the 19th century on the sugar plantations of the eastern coastal area, then known as Natal. They are largely English speaking, although many also retain the...
descent. The movement stirred many blacks to confront not only the legal but also the cultural and psychological realities of Apartheid, seeking "not black visibility but real black participation" in society and in political struggles.
The gains this movement made were widespread across South Africa. Many black people felt a new sense of pride about being black as the movement helped to expose and critique the inferiority complex felt by many blacks at the time. The group formed Formation Schools to provide leadership seminars, and placed a great importance on decentralization and autonomy, with no person serving as president for more than one year (although Biko was clearly the primary leader of the movement). Early leaders of the movement such as Bennie Khoapa
Bennie Khoapa
Bennie Khoapa was a social worker in South Africa during the 1960s and 1970s involved in the resistance to apartheid. He worked for the Young Men's Christian Association , and was supportive of the young activists of the time, especially the young Steve Biko...
, Barney Pityana
Barney Pityana
Nyameko Barney Pityana FKC is a human rights lawyer and theologian in South Africa. He is an exponent of Black theology....
, Mapetla Mohapi, and Mamphela Ramphele
Mamphela Ramphele
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African academic, businesswoman and medical doctor and was an anti-apartheid activist. She is a current trustee on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.-Life and career:...
joined Biko in establishing the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in 1970 as self-help groups for black communities, forming out of the South African Council of Churches
South African Council of Churches
The South African Council of Churches is an interdenominational forum in South Africa. It was a prominent anti-apartheid organisation during the years of apartheid in South Africa. Its leaders have included Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naudé and Frank Chikane....
and the Christian Institute. They also published various journals, including the Black Review, Black Voice, Black Perspective, and Creativity in Development.
On top of building schools and day cares and taking part in other social projects, the BCM through the BCP was involved in the staging of the large scale protests and workers strikes which gripped the nation in 1972 and 1973, especially in Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. Indeed, in 1973 the government of South Africa began to clamp down on the movement, claiming that their ideas of black development were treasonous, and virtually the entire leadership of SASO and BPC were banned. In late August and September 1974, after holding rallies in support of the Frelimo government which had taken power in Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
, many leaders of the BCM were arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. Arrests under these laws allowed the suspension of the doctrine of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
, and many of those arrested were not formally charged until the next year, resulting in the arrest of the "Pretoria Twelve" and conviction of the "SASO nine", which included Maitshe Mokoape and Patrick Lekota
Mosiuoa Lekota
Mosiuoa Gerard Patrick Lekota is a South African politician who currently serves as the President and Leader of the Congress of the People since 16 December 2008. Previously, under President Thabo Mbeki, he served in the Cabinet of South Africa as Minister of Defence from 17 June 1999 to 25...
. These were the most prominent among various public trials which gave a forum for members of the BCM to explain their philosophy and to describe the abuses that had been inflicted upon them. Far from crushing the movement, this led to its wider support among black and white South Africans.
The Soweto riots and after: 1976-present
The Black Consciousness Movement heavily supported the protests against the policies of the apartheid regime which led to the Soweto riotsSoweto riots
The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, was a series of high school student-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of...
in June 1976. The protests began when it was decreed that black students be forced to learn Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, and that many secondary school classes were to be taught in that language. This was another encroachment against the black population, which generally spoke indigenous languages like Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
and Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
at home, and saw English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as offering more prospects for mobility and economic self-sufficiency than did Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
. And the notion that Afrikaans was to define the national identity stood directly against the BCM principle of the development of a unique black identity. The protest began as a non-violent demonstration before police opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds of youths.
The government's efforts to suppress the growing movement led to the imprisonment of Steve Biko, who became a symbol of the struggle. Biko died in police custody on September 12, 1977. It should be noted that Steve Biko was a non-violent activist, even though the movement he helped start eventually took up violent resistance. White newspaper editor Donald Woods
Donald Woods
Donald James Woods, CBE was a white South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist.As editor of the Daily Dispatch from 1965 to 1977, he befriended Steve Biko, leader of the anti-apartheid Black Consciousness Movement, and was banned by the government soon after Biko's death, which had been...
supported the movement and Biko, whom he had befriended, by leaving South Africa and exposing the truth behind Biko's death at the hands of police by publishing the book Biko.
One month after Biko's death, the South African government declared 17 groups associated with the Black Consciousness Movement to be illegal. Following this, many members joined more concretely political and tightly-structured parties such as the ANC, which used underground cells to maintain their organizational integrity despite banning by the government. And it seemed to some that the key goals of Black Consciousness had been attained, in that black identity and psychological liberation were growing. Nonetheless, in the months following Biko's death, activists continued to hold meetings to discuss resistance. Along with members of the BCM, a new generation of activists who had been inspired by the Soweto riots and Biko's death were present, including Bishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
. Among the organizations that formed in these meetings to carry the torch of Black Consciousness was the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) which persists to this day.
Almost immediately after the formation of AZAPO in 1978, its chairman, Ishmael Mkhabela, and secretary, Lybon Mabasa were detained under the Terrorism Act. In the following years, other groups sharing Black Consciousness principles formed, including the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Azanian Student Organization (AZASO) and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organization (PEBCO).
While many of these organizations still exist in some form, some evolved and could no longer be called parts of the Black Consciousness Movement. And as the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement itself waned, the ANC was returning to its role as the clearly leading force in the resistance to white rule. Still more former members of the Black Consciousness Movement continued to join the ANC, including Thozamile Botha
Thozamile Botha
Thozamile Botha is a South African politician. He started his political career as a trade unionist and was an executive member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Due to the apartheid government he went into exile in 1980 to Lesotho where he worked with Chris Hani...
from PEBCO.
Others formed new groups. For instance, in 1980, Pityana formed the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), an avowedly Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
group which used AZAPO as its political voice. Curtis Nkondo
Curtis Nkondo
Curtis Nkondo was a South African diplomat, school teacher and politician with the African National Congress. Born in Louis Trichardt, Nkondo was a life-long activist with the ANC...
from AZAPO and many members of AZASO and the Black Consciousness Media Workers Association joined the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
(UDF). Many groups published important newsletters and journals, such as the Kwasala of the Black Consciousness Media Workers and the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
based BCMA journal, Solidarity.
And beyond these groups and media outlets, the Black Consciousness Movement had an extremely broad legacy, even as the movement itself was no longer represented by a single organization.
While the Black Consciousness Movement itself spawned an array of smaller groups, many people who came of age as activists in the Black Consciousness Movement did not join them. Instead, they joined a other organizations, including the ANC, the Unity Movement, the Pan Africanist Congress, the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
and trade and civic unions.
The Black Consciousness Movement's most-lasting legacy is as an intellectual movement. The weakness of theory in and of itself to mobilize constituencies can be seen in AZAPO's inability to win significant electoral support in modern-day South Africa. But the strength of the ideas can be seen in the diffusion of Black Consciousness language and strategy into nearly every corner of black South African politics.
In fact, these ideas helped make the complexity of the South African black political world, which can be so daunting to the newcomer or the casual observer, into a strength. As the government tried to act against this organization or that one, people in many organizations shared the general ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement, and these ideas helped to organize action beyond any specific organizational agenda. If the leader of this group or that one was thrown into prison, nonetheless, more and more black South Africans agreed on the importance of black leadership and active resistance. Partly as a result, the difficult goal of unity in struggle became more and more realized through the late nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties.
Biko and the legacy of the Black Consciousness movement helped give the resistance a culture of fearlessness. And its emphasis on individual psychological pride helped ordinary people realize they could not wait for distant leaders (who were often exiled or in prison) to liberate them. As the ANC's formal armed wing Umkhonto weSizwe struggled to make gains, this new fearlessness became the basis of a new battle in the streets, in which larger and larger groups of ordinary and often unarmed people confronted the police and the army more and more aggressively. If the ANC could not defeat the white government's massive army with small bands of professional guerrilla fighters, it was able to eventually win power through ordinary black peoples' determination to make South Africa ungovernable by a white government. What could not be achieved by men with guns was accomplished by teenagers throwing stones. While much of this later phase of the struggle was not undertaken under the formal direction of Black Consciousness groups per se, it was certainly fueled by the spirit of Black Consciousness. Kashy Singh(2005) had said that black people are equal to all other human beings
Even after the end of apartheid, Black Consciousness politics live on in community development projects and "acts of dissent
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
" staged both to bring about change and to further develop a distinct black identity.
Controversies and criticism
A balanced analysis of the results and legacy of the Black Consciousness Movement would no doubt find a variety of perspectives. A list of research resources is listed at the end of this section including Columbia University's Project on Black Consciousness and Biko's Legacy.Criticisms of the Movement sometimes mirror similar observations of the Black Consciousness Movement in the United States. (See reference to Fredrickson's comparative work below). On one side, it was argued that the Movement would stagnate into black racialism, aggravate racial tensions and attract repression by the apartheid regime. Other detractors thought the Movement based heavily on student idealism, but with little grassroots support among the masses, and few consistent links to the mass trade-union movement. (See Columbia reference below)
Assessments of the movement (See Gerhard references below) note that it failed to achieve several of its key objectives. It did not bring down the apartheid regime, nor did its appeal to other non-white groups as "people of color" gain much traction. Its focus on blackness as the major organizing principle was very much downplayed by Nelson Mandela and his successors who to the contrary emphasized the multi-racial balance needed for the post-apartheid nation. The community programs fostered by the movement were very small in scope and were subordinated to the demands of protest and indoctrination. It's leadership and structure was essentially liquidated, and it failed to bridge the tribal gap in any *large-scale* way, although certainly small groups and individuals collaborated across tribes.
After much blood shed and property destroyed, critics charged that the Movement did nothing more than raise 'awareness' of some issues, while accomplishing little in the way of sustained mass organization, or of practical benefit for the masses. Some detractors also assert that Black consciousness ideas are out-dated, hindering the new multi-racial South Africa. (See Gerhard reference 1997 below).
Defenses of the Black Consciousness Movement
Defenders of the BCM by contrast held that charges of impracticality failed to grasp the universal power of an idea - the idea of freedom and liberation for blacks. This was Biko's reply to many of the Movement's critics. Indeed Biko rejected the "practicality" charge as an example of the compromises that hindered and delayed black liberation, saying in 1977: "We have been successful to the extent that we have diminished the element of fear in the minds of black people." See Columbia reference below.Defenders of the movement argued that blackness was the best, most energetic organizing principle that was available at the time, in contrast to laborious legal, non-violent and petition based integrationist approach used by white dominated moderate groups.
Biko made no bones about the 'consciousness' aspect of the movement and in this limited respect he is similar to Huey P. Newton
Huey P. Newton
Huey Percy Newton was an American political and urban activist who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.-Early life:...
of the Black Panthers in the United States. What was important to Biko and other leaders, was not creating yet another political party or group squabbling over local spoils, but a fundamental mobilization and change in attitude and outlook of the black oppressed and destitute. Some contemporary BCM leaders claim that its principles are currently relevant and decry what they see as evidence of 'sellout' in the new South Africa. (See AZAPO reference below).
Black Consciousness in literature
In comparison with the Black PowerBlack Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the Black Consciousness movement felt little need to reconstruct any sort of golden cultural heritage. African linguistic
Languages of South Africa
South Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. Fewer than one percent of South Africans speak a first language other than an official one. Most South Africans can speak more than one language. Dutch and...
and cultural
Culture of South Africa
South Africa is known for its ethnic and cultural diversity. Therefore, there is no single culture of South Africa.The South African black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives...
traditions were alive and well in the country. Short stories published predominantly in Drum magazine
Drum (Magazine)
Drum is a South African family magazine mainly aimed at Black readers and contains market news, entertainment and feature articles. It has two sister magazines: Huisgenoot and YOU .In 2005 it was described as "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa"—but it is...
had led to the 1950s being called the Drum decade, and future Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
was beginning to become active. The fallout from the Sharpeville massacre led to many of those artists entering exile, but the political oppression of the resistance itself led to a new growth of black South African Literature. In the 1970s, Staffrider
Staffrider
Staffrider was a South African literary magazine.Staffrider was first published in 1977, and took its name from slang for people hanging outside or on the roof of overcrowded, racially segregated trains....
magazine became the dominant forum for the publication of BC literature, mostly in the form of poetry and short stories. Book clubs, youth associations, and clandestine street-to-street exchange became popular. Various authors explored the Soweto riots
Soweto riots
The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, was a series of high school student-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of...
in novels, including Miriam Tlali
Miriam Tlali
Miriam Tlali is a South African novelist. She was the first black woman in South Africa to publish a novel., Muriel at Metropolitan. She was also one of the first to write about Soweto....
, Mothobi Mutloatse and Mbulelo Mzamane. But the most compelling force in Black Consciousness prose was the short story, now adapted to teach political morals. Mtutuzeli Matshoba famously wrote, "Do not say to me that I am a man." An important theme of Black Consciousness literature was the rediscovery of the ordinary, which can be used to describe the work of Njabulo Ndebele
Njabulo Ndebele
Professor Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele , an academic, a literary and a writer of fiction, is the former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town.- Life and career :...
.
However, it was in poetry that the Black Consciousness Movement first found its voice. In a sense, this was a modern update of an old tradition, since several of South Africa's African languages had long traditions of performed poetry. Sipho Sempala, Mongane Serote, and Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala
Mafika Pascal Gwala is a contemporary South African poet and editor, writing in English and Zulu.Mafika Gwala was born and grew up in [Verulam] North of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. He spent most of his adult life in Mpumalanga Township, west of Durban...
led the way, although Sempala turned to prose after Soweto. Serote wrote from exile of his internalization of the struggles, while Gwala's work was informed and inspired by the difficulty of life in his home township of Mpumalanga near Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. These forerunners inspired a myriad of followers, most notably poet-performance artist Ingoapele Madingoane.
James Mathews
James Mathews
James Mathews may refer to:* James Mathews , member of the US House of Representatives from Ohio* James Mathews * James Mathews , Australian rugby player...
was a part of the Drum decade who was especially influential to the Black Consciousness Movement. This poem gives an idea of the frustrations that blacks felt under apartheid:
- Freedom's child
- You have been denied too long
- Fill your lungs and cry rage
- Step forward and take your rightful place
- You are not going to grow up knocking at the back door....
This poem by an unknown author has a rather confrontational look:
- Kaffer man, Kaffer nation
- Arise, arise from the kaffer
- Prepare yourself for war!
- We are about to start
steve biko the hero
Mandlenkosi Langa's poem: "Banned for Blackness" also calls for black resistance :
- Look up, black man, quit stuttering and shuffling
- Look up, black man, quit whining and stooping
- ...raise up your black fist in anger and vengeance.
A main tenet of the Black Consciousness Movement itself was the development of black culture, and thus black literature. The cleavages in South African society were real, and the poets and writers of the BCM saw themselves as spokespersons for blacks in the country. They refused to be beholden to proper grammar and style, searching for black aesthetics and black literary values. The attempt to awaken a black cultural identity was thus inextricably tied up with the development of black literature.
Important figures in the movement
- Steve BikoSteve BikoStephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
- founder - Bennie KhoapaBennie KhoapaBennie Khoapa was a social worker in South Africa during the 1960s and 1970s involved in the resistance to apartheid. He worked for the Young Men's Christian Association , and was supportive of the young activists of the time, especially the young Steve Biko...
- Mapetla Mohapi
- Malusi Mpumluana
- Thamsanga MnyeleThamsanga MnyeleThamsanqa Mnyele was a South African artist associated with the anti-apartheid politics of the African National Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement. His artistic career took off in the 1970s when he produced works dealing with the emotional and human consequences of oppression...
- artist - Rubin PhillipRubin PhillipThe Right Reverend Rubin Phillip is bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Natal. The great-grandchild of indentured labourers from Andhra Pradesh, Phillip is the first black South African to hold the position of Bishop of Natal...
- cleric - Barney PityanaBarney PityanaNyameko Barney Pityana FKC is a human rights lawyer and theologian in South Africa. He is an exponent of Black theology....
- Mamphela RampheleMamphela RampheleMamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African academic, businesswoman and medical doctor and was an anti-apartheid activist. She is a current trustee on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.-Life and career:...
- Mthuli ka SheziMthuli ka SheziMthuli ka Shezi was a South African playwright and political activist. He was a student activist when he attended the University of Zululand, and in 1972 he was elected the first vice president of the Black People's Convention...
- playwright - Barney SimonBarney SimonBarney Simon was a South African writer, playwright and director.- Early life :The son of working-class Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Simon discovered a love of theatre while working under director Joan Littlewood in London in the 1950s...
- founder of The Market Theatre
Related groups
- Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO)
- Black Allied Worker's Union
- Black People's ConventionBlack People's ConventionThe Black People's Convention was founded at the end of 1972 as the Nationalist Liberatory Flagship of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.The BCM was a product of three historicultural and ideological imperatives:...
- NégritudeNégritudeNégritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
, a literary movement in francophone Africa - Neo Black Movement of AfricaNeo Black Movement of AfricaThe Neo Black Movement of Africa, also known as the Black Axe, is a Nigerian student cult and criminal organisation. The Black Axe is accused of responsibility in a series of shootings and killings, including violent confrontations with other confraternities.A representative of the Neo Black...
- Socialist Party of AzaniaSocialist Party of AzaniaThe Socialist Party of Azania is a Scientific Socialist, Black Consciousness political party in South Africa. In the 2004 general elections, it received only 0.1% of the vote and no legislatorial seats at either the national and provincial levels....
(SOPA) - South African Student Organization
See also
- Africana womanismAfricana womanism"Africana Womanism" is a termed coined in the late 1980s by Clenora Hudson-Weems intended as an ideology applicable to all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture and Afrocentrism and focuses on the experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women of the African...
- Black PowerBlack PowerBlack Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
- Black Power RevolutionBlack Power RevolutionThe Black Power Revolution, also known as the "Black Power Movement", 1970 Revolution, Black Power Uprising and February Revolution, was an attempt by a number of social elements, people and interest groups in Trinidad and Tobago to force socio-political change.-History:Between 1968 and 1970 the...
- Black Surrealism
- NégritudeNégritudeNégritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...