1914 – 1947

Founding President of the African National Congress Youth League

Anton Lembede was born in 1914 into a family of farm labourers in the Georgedale district of Natal, present-day KwaZulu-Natal.

His mother, who had passed Standard V (current grade 7) taught him up to Standard II (grade 4) and he then passed Standard IV, V and VI in a country school at Umbumbulu. By virtue of a first class pass in Standard VI he was able to obtain a scholarship to Adams College.

He trained as a teacher while concurrently pursuing his junior certificate through private study. He obtained both his teacher and junior certificate in 1935, and secured his matriculation certificate in 1937, with a distinction in Latin.

Although he was unable to attend the University of Fort Hare because his family depended on his income as a teacher, he secured a BA through private study at the end of 1940 and obtained his LLB two years later.

In 1945 he obtained his MA from the University of South Africa after submitting his thesis The conception of God as expounded by Great Philosophers from Descartes to the present-day. He knew Latin, German and Dutch and began learning French.

When he completed his law degree, he abandoned teaching and moved to Johannesburg, where the veteran politician, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, employed him as a law clerk and later made him a partner. He was admitted to the bar in 1946. Seme was preparing to sell him his law firm when Lembede developed intestinal complications and died unexpectedly at the age of 33.

During his short political career, Lembede developed the idea of Africanism, a doctrine calling for a government of Africans, by Africans, for Africans and the psychological emancipation of Africans to rely on themselves for liberation. His outlook was Pan-African and he believed that Africa had a divine destiny and would take her rightful place among the peoples of the earth in due time.

On Easter Sunday in 1944 at the Bantu Men's Social Centre in Johannesburg, Lembede together with Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Ashby (A.P.) Mda and others founded the ANC Youth League, believing the mother body needed to become more radical.

As the league's founding president, and later as a member of the ANCs national executive, his writings not only formed the backbone of the Youth League Manifesto but also influenced ANC policies. He was a leading advocate of more militant strategies and tactics in the ANC, and even though he died before its adoption, he was later considered an architect of the 1949 Programme of Action.

By the mid-1950s Lembede's ideas were contested within the ANC Youth League, but continued to strongly favour an Africanist faction, that later coalesced into the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).

Lembede was laid to rest at the Croesus cemetery in Johannesburg on 3 August 1947. His pallbearers and speakers represented a broad spectrum of black political and educational leaders, including Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Oliver Tambo, Yusuf Dadoo, Ashby Mda, Sofasonke Mpanza, Jordan Ngubane, Alfred Xuma, William Nkomo and Benedict Vilakazi.

Lembede was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Gold by the South African government in 2005 for exceptional contribution to the struggle for a non-racial, non-sexist, free and democratic South Africa.