1912 — The Founding of the African National Congress

On January 8, 1912, Black leaders, chiefs, and intellectuals gathered in Bloemfontein to found the South African Native National Congress. Driven by lawyer Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the movement set out to defend the political and land rights of Black South Africans. In 1923, it was renamed the African National Congress.

From that meeting room grew the backbone of the anti-apartheid struggle, a movement that would carry a people's hopes through decades of oppression. Its most famous member, Nelson Mandela, completed the long arc begun in 1912: in 1994, he became South Africa's first Black president, leading the very nation the founders had imagined free.