The Freedom Charter of 1955- South Africa

In June 1955, three thousand delegates of all ethnic origins met in Kliptown which is near Johannesburg. The delegates came from the ANC (African National Congress), the Indian Congress, Colored Peoples Congress, Congress of Trade Unions alliance. These organizations, together formed the Congress Alliance. The Congress Alliance came together to organize the Congress of the people a conference of all the people of South Africa which presented people`s demands for the kind of South Africa they wanted. The diverse group was comprised of doctors, peasants, ministers, domestic workers, students, city workers, teachers and housewives of all races and classes. They drafted, revised and adopted the Freedom Charter, which still forms the guiding principles for the ANC and other civic organizations. They called for:

• The people to govern and for the land to be shared by those who worked it
• Houses, work, and security and for
• Free and equal education.

As soon as this Charter was released the government claimed that the Freedom Charter was a communist document. This was an easy scapegoat because Communism was banned by the government in 1950, so they arrested ANC and Congress leaders and brought them to trial in the famous Treason Trial. They also tried to prove that the ANC and its allies had a policy of violence and planned to overthrown the state. The Freedom Charter declared that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.

A small minority of members, who called themselves Africanists, opposed the Freedom Charter. Not everyone in the ANC agreed with the policy of non racialism. They objected to the ANC`s growing co-operation with whites and Indians, who they described as foreigners. They were also suspicious of communists who, they felt, brought a foreign ideology into the struggle. The differences between the Africanists and those in the ANC who supported non-racialism, could not be overcome. In 1959, the Africanists broke away and formed the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

The Freedom Charter

As adopted at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, on 26 June 1955

We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:

• that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
• that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
• that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
• that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;

And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;

And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

The People Shall Govern!

• Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;
• All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
• The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
• All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government .

All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!

• There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
• All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
• All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
• The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
• All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.

The People Shall Share in the Country`s Wealth!

• The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
• The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
• All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people;
• All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.

The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!

• Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
• The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
• Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
• All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
• People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.

All Shall be Equal Before the Law!

• No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial; No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
• The courts shall be representative of all the people;
• Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
• The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
• All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.

All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!

• The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;
• The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;
• All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
• Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.

There Shall be Work and Security!

• All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
• The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
• Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
• There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
• Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
• Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.

The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!

• The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
• All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
• The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
• Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children; Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
• Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
• Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
• The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.

There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!

• All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
• Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
• Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;
• A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
• Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;
• Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres;
• The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;
• Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all:
• Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.
• There Shall be Peace and Friendship!
• South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
• South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation – not war;
• Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
• The people of the protectorates Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
• The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.

Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here:

THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR, SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY

Learn more about South Africa’s history in Mandela’s Azania: A brief analysis of precolonial, colonial and postcolonial South Africa

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