Abstract
Abstract Threatened by black advancement, South Africa's white electorate voted in a National Party government in 1948 that initiated thorough racial segregation called apartheid. During the 1950s the African National Congress (ANC), evolved from moderate elite group to mass movement, embarked on passive resistance. In March 1960 Sharpeville police killed 69 by shooting into a crowd of protesters. For the ANC nonviolent civil disobedience seemed futile against a state responding with deadly force. Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu introduced the armed option to the ANC national executive and in July 1961, after some opposition, they received permission to establish a separate military organization to engage in controlled violence and avoid injury. Named “Umkhonto we Sizwe” (Spear of the Nation or MK), it was led by a high command made up of Mandela, Sisulu, Joe Slovo, and Raymond Mhlaba and regional commands based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban.
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