BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Dr James Moroka 1892 - 1985

Dr James Sebe Moroka was born on 16 March 1892 in Thaba’Nchu, (Orange Free State). His
great-grandfather was Chief Moroka the 1st of the Barolong.

After completing his schooling, he attended the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where
he qualified as a medical doctor in 1918. He returned to South Africa, and set up a practice in
Thaba’Nchu. In 1933 Dr Moroka went to Vienna, Austria for post-graduate studies. He returned to
South Africa, after qualifying as a surgeon in 1936.

Dr Moroka’s political career started when he became involved in Black people’s resistance against
the Native Trust & Land (draft) Bills of JBM Hertzog. Moroka participated in the first meeting of the
All African Convention (AAC) that was held in Bloemfontein in December 1935, and he was elected
as treasurer of the AAC in 1936.

JS Moroka’s association with the ANC began in 1942, and in 1943 he became a member of the
Atlantic Charter Committee of the ANC. He rose to prominence, and in 1949, supported by the
Youth League, was elected president-general of the ANC. Defiance of the Nationalist
government’s policies, led to the arrest of 21 leaders (including Moroka) of the ANC under the
Suppression of Communism Act, on 30 July 1952. All accused received a suspended sentence.

According to Nelson Mandela, writing in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom:

'Dr Moroka was an unlikely choice. He was a member of the All African Convention (AAC), which was dominated by Trotskyist elements at that time. When he agreed to stand against Dr Xuma, the Youth League then enrolled him as a member of the ANC. When first approached, he consistently referred to the ANC as the African National “Council”. He was not very knowledgeable about the ANC, neither was he an experienced activist, but he was respectable, and amenable to our programme. Like Dr Xuma, he was a doctor, and one of the wealthiest black men in South Africa. He had studied at Edinburgh and Vienna. His great-grandfather had been a chief in Orange Free State, and had greeted the Afrikaner Voortrekkers of the nineteenth century with open arms and gifts of land, and then been betrayed. Dr Xuma was defeated and Dr Moroka became president general of the ANC.’

According to Peter Walshe, ‘the radicals of the Transvaal left-wing and the Youth League had acquired a more malleable president, even if he lacked the national stature of Xuma and the latter's capacity for diligent if frustrated attention to the detailed matters of Congress organisation'. Walshe also notes that Moroka's new Executive failed to improve the organisational workings of the ANC, and in the period leading up to the Defiance Campaign the ANC underwent further organisational 'stagnation': its finances were depleted, inadequate provincial reports were submitted, tensions were rife in the Natal and Transvaal branches, and the continued existence of the national headquarters was in jeopardy.

During Moroka’s three-year presidency, the ANC, now dominated by the radicals of the Youth League, became a more militant organisation. Moroka found it challenging to exercise control over the organisation, based as he was at Thaba Nchu, which was far removed from the central political arena of the Witwatersrand. Despite his failures, Moroka did not hesitate to work with other militant organisations such as the Communist Party of South Africa(CPSA) and the South African Indian Congress(SAIC).

However, Moroka’s distance from the centre prompted critics to say he lacked an understanding of Transvaal politics, which led to blunders. Critics described many of his actions as naÁ¯ve and short-sighted, and as contributing to dissension within the ranks of the ANC.

Moroka presided over the ANC in one of its most active and effective phases. The ANC began to consider implementing the Programme of Action, anda Council of Action – including Moroka, Gaur Radebe, Godfrey M Pitje, CS Ramohanoeand Oliver Tambo– was appointed in February 1950, tasked with deciding on methods of protest.

At the ANC Annual Conference in December 1952, James Moroka was defeated by Albert Luthuli.
He died on 10 November 1985.