This Day in History: December 19, 1953
Additional Date: December 19, 1953
The 41 annual conference of the African National Congress (ANC) in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, continues. Amongst the ANC leaders who attended the event was Walter Sisulu. At the conference the ANC resolved to begin with the boycott campaign. A series of boycott campaigns were staged throughout the country, including the 1952 Defiance Campaign. This was the biggest non-violent resistance movement ever seen in South Africa and the first campaign undertaken jointly by all racial groups under the leadership of the ANC and the South African Indian Congress (SAIC). The period 1950 -1952 began with a commitment to mass action and to tactics of boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience.