Unsilenced: Unearthing the African National Congress Underground Literature

• In Event: Ghost Rivers of Global Black Studies: African Intellectual Ancestors from Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa

Abstract

After its banning in 1960 by the South African apartheid government, the African National Congress (ANC) took to the underground as a space where the identities of the oppressed could challenge apartheid’s geographical and discursive boundaries. Underground literature such as Dawn and Sechaba became vital organs for documenting the struggle from the 1960s to 1990. This paper investigates how the ANC sought solidarity, to resist the apartheid regime, and does so by unearthing the silenced narratives of the organisation’s clandestine underground literature. At the nexus of scholarship and activism, this interdisciplinary exploration delves into the intersections of language, power, and resistance to highlight the vital role of Black solidarity in dismantling oppressive systems.

Through a combination of corpus linguistics, and critical discourse analysis, this research positions ANC underground literature as a site of Pan-African dialogue and defiance against apartheid South Africa’s violent racial regime. By amplifying voices from the Global South, the study underscores the transnational nature of Black liberation movements, where the language of resistance served not only as a tool for political mobilization but also as a mechanism to foster solidarity among oppressed peoples globally. I argue that the ANC drew on Pan-Africanist ideals to forge a collective Black identity and inspire a shared vision for liberation and did so through language. The underground literature which is now archived, reveals strategic acts of linguistic resistance that subverted apartheid narratives while connecting the ANC's struggle to broader global movements against oppressive systems.

Author

• Sikose Mjali, University of Washington