Mda was a lean fellow; he had no excess weight, just as he used no excess words. In his broad-minded tolerance of different views, his own thinking was more mature than that of Lembede. It took Mda’s leadership to advance Lembede’s cause.

Mda believed the Youth League should function as an internal pressure group, a militant nationalistic wing within the ANC as a whole that would propel the organization into a new era. At the time, the ANC did not have a single full-time employee, and was generally poorly organized, operating in a haphazard way. (Later, Walter became the first and only full-time ANC staff member at an extremely meager salary.)

Mda quickly established a branch of the Youth League at Fort Hare under the guidance of Z. K. Matthews and Godfrey Pitje, a lecturer in anthropology. They recruited outstanding students, bringing in fresh blood and new ideas. Among the most outstanding were Professor Matthews’s brilliant son Joe, and Robert Sobukwe, a dazzling orator and incisive thinker.

Mda was more moderate in his nationalism than Lembede, and his thinking was without the racial tinge that characterized Lembede’s. He hated white oppression and white domination, not white people themselves. He was also less extreme in his opposition to the Communist Party than Lembede — or myself. I was among the Youth Leaguers who were suspicious of the white left. Even though I had befriended many white Communists, I was wary of white influence in the ANC, and I opposed joint campaigns with the party. I was concerned that the Communists were intent on taking over our movement in the guise of joint action. I believed that it was an undiluted African nationalism, not Marxism or multiracialism, that would liberate us. With a few of my colleagues in the league, I even went so far as breaking up CP meetings by storming the stage, tearing up signs, and capturing the microphone. At the national conference of the ANC in December, the Youth League introduced a motion demanding the expulsion of all members of the Communist Party, but we were soundly defeated. Despite the influence the Indian passive resistance campaign of 1946 had on me, I felt about the Indians the same way I did about the Communists: that they would tend to dominate the ANC, in part because of their superior education, experience, and training.

 

 

In 1947, I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Transvaal ANC and served under C. S. Ramohanoe, president of the Transvaal region. This was my first position in the ANC proper, and represented a milestone in my commitment to the organization. Until that time, the sacrifices I had made had not gone much further than being absent from my wife and family during weekends and returning home late in the evening. I had not been directly involved in any major campaign, and I did not yet understand the hazards and unending difficulties of the life of a freedom fighter. I had coasted along without having to pay a price for my commitment. From the time I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Transvaal region, I came to identify myself with the congress as a whole, with its hopes and despairs, its successes and failures; I was now bound heart and soul.

Ramohanoe was another one of those from whom I learned. He was a staunch nationalist and a skillful organizer who was able to balance divergent views and come forward with a suitable compromise. While Ramohanoe was unsympathetic to the Communists, he worked well with them. He believed that the ANC was a national organization that should welcome all those who supported our cause.

 

 

In 1947, in the wake of the Indian passive resistance campaign, Drs. Xuma, Dadoo, and Naicker, presidents, respectively, of the ANC, the Transvaal Indian Congress, and the Natal Indian Congress, signed the Doctors’ Pact agreeing to join forces against a common enemy. This was a significant step toward the unity of the African and Indian movements.