From protest to challenge is a multi-volume chronicle of the struggle to achieve democracy and end racial discrimination in South Africa. Beginning in 1882 during the heyday of European imperialism, these volumes document the history of race conflict, protest, and political mobilisation by South Africa’s black majority. Completely revised and updated, with the inclusion of photographs and with the previous volumes re-formatted to unify the series, this second edition of From protest to challenge revives the classic work of Thomas Karis and Gwendolen Carter and provides an indispensable resource for students and scholars of African history, race and ethnicity, identity politics, democratic transitions and conflict resolution. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance and generosity of all those who helped to make this book possible. During two extended periods of pioneering field research by Gwendolen Carter, Thomas Karis, and Sheridan Johns in South Africa in 1963 and 1964 – a period of growing political tension – dozens of South Africans gave them documents or loaned them material to photocopy, often in the hope of preventing irreplaceable records from falling into the hands of the police. In addition, lawyers for the defendants in the 1956–61 treason trial contributed a complete set of the trial transcript and the preliminary examination, as well as a set of virtually all the documents assembled by the defence in preparation for the trial. Added to the materials that the team was able to photocopy from archival collections at several South African universities and at the South African institute of race relations, these months of fieldwork provided the initial foundation for what was to become the first four volumes of From protest to challenge.

From protest to challenge is a multi-volume chronicle of the struggle to achieve democracy and end racial discrimination in South Africa. Beginning in 1882 during the heyday of European imperialism, these volumes document the history of race conflict, protest, and political mobilisation by South Africa's black majority. This revised and updated edition of Volume 1 of the classic series From protest to challenge surveys half a century of early efforts by black South Africans to win full citizenship in the country of their birth. Ninety-nine primary source documents are reproduced, accompanied by a text that sets the documents in historical context. Authors of the documents include John Dube, Josiah Gumede, John Tengo Jabavu, Clements Kadalie, Charlotte Maxeke, Sol Plaatje, and Pixley Seme. New documents by Abdullah Abdurahman, Margery Perham, Mohandas Gandhi, and the Communist Party of South Africa have been added. Students, teachers, political activists, and general readers will all find valuable resources and new perspectives in this important reference work.

Volume 3 deals with the crucial period of the 1950s and the early 1960s. These were years of mass passive resistance to apartheid; years when the ANC was able to rally hundreds of thousands of supporters for its strategy of non-violent protest. This was the period when the increasingly brutal repressive measures of the state, culminating in the Sharpeville massacre and the banning of the ANC and PAC, finally turned the movement away from its proud tradition of non-violence into the difficult and protracted path of armed struggle.

"The essays are meticulous and carefully documented accounts which maintain the standard of excellence set by the previous volumes, all of which belong in every library." -Choice "Based on extensive documentary archives collected by these researchers, and augmented by interviews with virtually all of the significant antiapartheid activists, this volume covers a formative period in the struggle against white minority rule, 1964-1979." -Africa Today " . . . a substantial achievement . . . a wonderful resource for future generations of scholars." -South African Historical Journal "Karis and Gerhart's fifth volume is an invaluable addition to their earlier documentary history of the national liberation struggle in South Africa, and includes a priceless collection of new primary historical sources. It ignites vivid flashes of memory . . . " -from the Foreword by Nelson Mandela Volume 5 of this magnificent historical record continues the indispensable study of the struggle for freedom and justice in South Africa. In addition to extensive background essays, it includes formal documents, underground and ephemeral materials, and statements written in exile or in Robben Island prison that have not previously been published.

From Protest to Challenge is a multi-volume chronicle of the struggle to achieve democracy and end racial discrimination in South Africa. Beginning in 1882 during the heyday of European imperialism, these volumes document the history of race conflict, protest, and political mobilization by South Africa s black majority. Volume 6 takes up the story in 1980 and examines the crucial decade that preceded the collapse of the apartheid system. As with earlier volumes in the series, it combines narrative with a wealth of primary source materials that record the words of the men and women who shaped South Africa s complex history."

"This book, better than any I have seen, provides an understanding of the politics and ideology of orthodox African nationalism, or Black Power, in South Africa since World War II. . . . from the Youth League of the African Student National Congress (ANC) of the late 1940s to the South African Student Organization (SASO) and the Black Consciousness Movement of the 1970s."--"Perspective"
"Clarifies some of the main issues that have divided the black leadership and rescues the work of some pioneering nationalist theorists. . . . It's an absorbing piece of history."--"New York Times"
"Informative and well-researched. . . . She ably explores the nuances of the two main movements until 1960 and explains why blacks were so receptive to black consciousness in the late Sixties."--"New York Review"