Reflecting on 70 years of the Freedom Charter: a journey towards equality

SEVENTY years ago, on June 26, 1955, the Freedom Charter was adopted at the Congress of the People in Kliptown.

- PROFESSOR SALEEM BADAT

It followed Professor ZK Matthews’s suggestion in 1953 to hold a “national convention” to formulate “a Freedom Charter for the democratic South Africa of the future”. While not produced by the ANC, it was closely associated with the ANC.

People from different walks of life were asked what kind of South Africa they wished to live in, as an alternative to the horrors of apartheid. Their responses were stitched together to create the Freedom Charter.

After 1960, with the banning of the ANC and other political movements, and the suppression of protest, the Freedom Charter went out of view. It reappeared when resistance to apartheid began to grow again.

In 1980, the Sunday Post published the Freedom Charter and an article on its history. The 1981 Anti-Republic Day movement that protested the racist white republic promoted the Freedom Charter as the basis for a democratic people's republic.

On its 30th anniversary in 1985, it was widely promoted. Many anti-apartheid organisations adopted the Freedom Charter as their manifesto.

The Freedom Charter responded to white minority rule, segregation, and the white monopoly of the land, mines and economy, of professional and well-paying jobs, and of educational opportunities.

It stated that South Africa belonged “to all who live in it, black and white”, based “on the will of all the people”. It declared that “the people shall govern”, that “all national groups shall have equal rights”, and all were to “enjoy equal human rights”, and “be equal before the law”.