Alfred Bitini Xuma

Alfred Bitini Xuma [k ǁ uma ] ( born March 8, 1893 in Manzana Village, community Engcobo; † January 1962 in Johannesburg) was a South African physician and chairman of the African National Congress ( ANC). He was married to his second wife Madie Beatrice Hall, who acted as first president of the ANC Women's League.

Life

Xuma was born in an influential family of the Transkei region. He received his early education from the age of seven in the Wesleyan Mission School of Manzana, a mission establishment of the Anglican Church. Then he took a teacher training at Pietermaritzburg Training Institute. He acquired Xumas first academic training in the United States, where he arrived in 1913. He first studied at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and graduated with a degree in agriculture from. Then he went to the State University of Minnesota, where he earned a Bachelor. The entered medical school Xuma at the University of Milwaukee, he continued it at Northwestern University in Chicago. To expand his medical knowledge Xuma went to Europe and specialized in gynecology, obstetrics and surgery. His way led first to Austria and Hungary.

Further statements were in Scotland with the Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians ( LRCP ) and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ( LRCS ) at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons ( LRFPS ) at the University of Glasgow added.

In 1927 or 1928 he returned to South Africa, established a surgical practice in Sophiatown, Empilweni called, and came up with the first political activities in contact. Xuma married in 1931 in Johannesburg, the Liberian Priscilla Mason. From this marriage two children were born. Three years after his marriage, his first wife died. After her death, he went abroad, where he completed a course of study at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Public Health and a Ph.D. again completed. In 1935 he was elected Vice President of the All African Convention (AAC ). Within this political organization which campaigned for improvements in living conditions among the black population of South Africa, he came up with leading personalities in this field. These were, for example, Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, President of the AAC, and Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews, both lecturers at the College of Fort Hare. Internal conflicts in the AAC led to the crossing of important members of the ANC.

In 1946, Xuma paid as part of an unofficial delegation to the United Nations in New York a visit to speak out there with a statement of January 22 against the plans of the then South African government, which intended to annex the territory of South West Africa.

From 1940 to 1949 Xuma was Secretary General of the ANC. Under his leadership, the ANC took the previous political experience and success together in position papers. Xumas work is characterized by a constitutional reform- style. With the programmatic paper "African Claims in South Africa" ​​, the ANC at its annual conference in 1943 a far-reaching thesis program with the character of a government statement decided. However, the then Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts ignored these positions and did not go on to the dialogue. Another document, called the " Bill of Rights ", raised the demand for equal basic rights for blacks in South Africa and called for the abolition of discriminatory laws. Such claims were equal educational opportunities, the right to vote and the right to freedom of the press, fair access to raw materials, and land opportunities in the professions, the bringing of collective rights and the granting of freedom of trade and proper health care. In matters of discrimination has insisted that the state apparatus renounce " rude, crude and ruthless treatment" of the blacks and the ' abolition of racial barriers " to take place by the Constitution and the legislature.

His liberal attitude was criticized and led to a change of course that organization. During his tenure, however, were successful efforts, which revived the activities and structures of the ANC and this was expanded into a mass organization.

On Xumas initiative is reformed the internal structures in 1943 by a new statute, the basics of membership have changed considerably. These changes were called Xuma Constitution. In future, the membership was tied to a regulated financial contribution, women received the same membership rights as men and people from all South African population groups could be included as well as the privileged " House of Chiefs " was abolished. In addition, during his tenure originated contacts with numerous other protest groups within the anti - apartheid movement. This affected in particular way the cooperatin with the South African Indian Congress (SAIC ). A similar agreement reached Xuma on March 9, 1947 Gagathura Mohambry Naicker from the Natal Indian Congress and Yusuf Dadoo with the Transvaal Indian Congress. Xumas merit in this context is the common position location between major political organizations of the black and ethnic Indian population during the worsening situation in apartheid South Africa. Conservative dominated ANC members rated this course critical because they were concerned about a large influence of the partner organizations of the ethnic Indian population within the ANC. In consequence of this development, the pressure by radical positions on Xuma increased, partly from the ANC youth organization coming, which led to increased cooperation between the youth organization with the South African Communist Party. Against him was formed a growing internal opposition whose claims eventually led to his resignation as ANC president. In this office he was succeeded by James Sebe Moroka 1949. Among the political rivals were the young activists Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. Together, they campaigned for a pro-active approach against the growing racial segregation in South Africa.

Xuma died in 1962 in a hospital of the district of Soweto, Johannesburg.

Tributes and honors

• Xuma was accepted at Cornell University in the list of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity among the group service and social reform.
• In Durban, they named the Dr AB Xuma Street after him.
• In Johannesburg's Sophiatown district was built in the former home of Xuma the Sophiatown Museum. The building received the 1998 status of a national monument. The founding of the museum, on the initiative of the City of Johannesburg and the Trevor Huddleston CR Memorial Centre ( THMC ).
• Dr AB Xuma Memorial Lecture (memorial reading) at the University of Oxford, for example, by Vusi Madonsela (Director General, Department of Social Development, South Africa)

Further Reading

• Steven D. Gish: Alfred B. Xuma. African, American, South African. New York University Press, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8147-3134-1.
• Peter Joyce: A concise dictionary of South African biography. Francolin Publishers, Cape Town 1999, ISBN 1-86859-037-2.
• Schade Berg, Bob Gosani include: The Fifties People of South Africa: the lives of some ninety -five people who were influential in South Africa falling on the fifties, a period Which saw the first stirrings of the coming revolution. Bailey 's African Photo Archives, 1987, ISBN 0-620-10529-1.
• Estate documents in the Library of the University of Witwatersrand.