112-476: The Azanian People's Organisation ( AZAPO ) is a South African liberation movement and political party. The organisation's two student wings are the Azanian Students' Movement (AZASM) for high school learners and the Azanian Students' Convention (AZASCO) for university level students. The organisation's women's wing is Imbeleko Women's Organisation, simply known as IMBELEKO. Its inspiration is drawn from
224-496: A 1907 newspaper article about Ed Perry, vice-chairman of the Oklahoma state committee, the phrase was used as follows: "In regard to his political views Mr. Perry has issued the following terse platform: 'I am for a square deal, grass root representation, for keeping close to the people, against ring rule and for fair treatment. ' " A 1904 news article on a campaign for possible Theodore Roosevelt running mate Eli Torrance quotes
336-553: A Kansas political organizer as saying: "Roosevelt and Torrance clubs will be organized in every locality. We will begin at the grass roots". Since the early 1900s, grassroots movements have been widespread both in the United States and in other countries. Major examples include parts of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Brazil's land equity movement of the 1970s and beyond,
448-546: A clear hierarchy are far less effective and are more likely to die off. Astroturfing refers to political action that is meant to appear to be grassroots, that is spontaneous and local, but in fact comes from an outside organization, such as a corporation or think tank. It is named after AstroTurf , a brand of artificial grass . An example of astroturfing was the ExxonMobil Corporation's push to disseminate false information about climate change. ExxonMobil
560-487: A collaboration between political activists & religious leaders for the improvement of communities through a multitude of projects. The Trust Fund was officially established in 1975 by Steve Biko on order to fund these projects. The capital for many of these projects came from fundraising done by Father Aelred Stubbs through churches in Europe.The first funding opportunity was to assist newly released political prisoners and
672-704: A distinct black identity. In black townships during the 1980s, rivalry between black-consciousness adherents belonging to Azapo and the UDF led to violence. This deadly violence was most pronounced in Soweto. [2] [3] A balanced analysis of the results and legacy of the Black Consciousness Movement would no doubt find a variety of perspectives. A list of research resources is listed at the end of this section including Columbia University's Project on Black Consciousness and Biko's Legacy. Criticisms of
784-458: A man ." An important theme of Black Consciousness literature was the rediscovery of the ordinary , which can be used to describe the work of Njabulo Ndebele . However, it was in poetry that the Black Consciousness Movement first found its voice. In a sense, this was a modern update of an old tradition, since several of South Africa's African languages had long traditions of performed poetry. Sipho Sempala , Mongane Serote , and Mafika Gwala led
896-412: A new sense of pride about being black as the movement helped to expose and critique the inferiority complex felt by many blacks at the time. The group formed Formation Schools to provide leadership seminars, and placed a great importance on decentralisation and autonomy, with no person serving as president for more than one year (although Biko was clearly the primary leader of the movement). Early leaders of
1008-510: A non-profit organization dedicated to creating and supporting grassroots movements in America says that grassroots movements aim to raise money, build organizations, raise awareness, build name recognition, to win campaigns and to deepen political participation. Grassroots movements work toward these and other goals via strategies focusing on local participation in either local or national politics. Grassroots organizations derive their power from
1120-408: A non-violent demonstration before police responded violently. The protest devolved into a riot. 176 people died mostly killed by the security forces [needs verification]. The government's efforts to suppress the growing movement led to the imprisonment of Steve Biko, who became a symbol of the struggle. Biko died in police custody on 12 September 1977. Steve Biko was a non-violent activist, even though
1232-510: A result, there emerged a greater cohesiveness and solidarity amongst black groups in general, which in turn brought black consciousness to the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa. The BCM's policy of perpetually challenging the dialectic of apartheid South Africa as a means of transforming Black thought into rejecting prevailing opinion or mythology to attain a larger comprehension brought it into direct conflict with
SECTION 10
#17327876525361344-504: A variety of strategies from fundraising and registering voters, to simply encouraging political conversation. Goals of specific movements vary and change, but the movements are consistent in their focus on increasing mass participation in politics. These political movements may begin as small and at the local level, but grassroots politics as Cornel West contends are necessary in shaping progressive politics as they bring public attention to regional political concerns. The idea of grassroots
1456-492: A white government. What could not be achieved by men with guns was accomplished by teenagers throwing stones. While much of this later phase of the struggle was not undertaken under the formal direction of Black Consciousness groups per se, it was certainly fuelled by the spirit of Black Consciousness. Even after the end of apartheid, Black Consciousness politics live on in community development projects and " acts of dissent " staged both to bring about change and to further develop
1568-856: Is a successor to the Azanian People's Liberation Front (APLF) whose cadres received military training from countries such as Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. There was an agreement with Iraq to train AZANLA combatants but that was thwarted by the First Gulf War in 1990. During the 1980s, it was engaged in a bloody internecine feud with the ANC which operated under the guise of the United Democratic Front (UDF). AZAPO, along with its youth wing AZAYO were unbanned in 1990, which permitted it to continue its political programs legally. It
1680-595: Is also a controversial example of astroturfing. Critics, notably including Former President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi , dismissed the Tea Party as Astroturf. They say that the movement purports to represent large swaths of America when in reality it comes from a select few billionaires seeking policies favorable to themselves. The Tea Party has defended itself, arguing that it comes out of broad popular support and widespread anger at
1792-474: Is an organization dedicated to upholding and advancing the principles of the American dream through highly sophisticated grassroots field operations. With a clear mission to recruit, train, lead, and retain a workforce of passionate and committed patriots, the group is focused on creating a highly skilled army of conservative, cause-driven individuals capable of executing the most effective grassroots campaigns on
1904-423: Is often conflated with participatory democracy . The Port Huron Statement , a manifesto seeking a more democratic society, says that to create a more equitable society, "the grass roots of American Society" need to be the basis of civil rights and economic reform movements. The terms can be distinguished in that grassroots often refers to a specific movement or organization, whereas participatory democracy refers to
2016-431: Is their blend of military-style leadership and AI-driven "overwatch" technology, which prevents fraud and enhances field performance, making their operations both efficient and reliable. The organization’s unique combination of advanced technology and disciplined management techniques places it at the forefront of grassroots political action, enabling them to play a key role in shaping the future of conservative movements in
2128-466: Is typically designed by outsiders who can only perceive a community’s need and so community needs are often only marginally addressed or not addressed at all. By contrast, bottom-up processing is defined as "observing or monitoring efforts defined and undertaken at the local scale and brought forward to higher-level bodies, often with a focus on supporting outcomes desired by a local community." Bottom-up processing has "local residents and [POC] co-facilitate
2240-631: Is used to organize is through the use of hashtags to group together postings from across the network under a unifying message. Some hashtags that stirred up larger media coverage include the #MeToo movement , started in 2017 in response to sexual assault allegations against prominent figures in the American entertainment industry. Grassroots movements also use hashtags to organize on a large scale on social media. Some examples include: The junior senator from Arizona and standard-bearer of conservative Republicans, Barry Goldwater announced his candidacy on January 3, 1964. Goldwater focused on goals such as reducing
2352-467: The ANC had committed to an armed struggle through its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe , but this small guerrilla army was neither able to seize and hold territory in South Africa nor to win significant concessions through its efforts. The ANC had been banned by apartheid leaders, and although the famed Freedom Charter remained in circulation in spite of attempts to censor it, for many students,
SECTION 20
#17327876525362464-690: The Black Consciousness Movement inspired philosophy of Black Consciousness developed by Steve Biko , Harry Nengwekhulu, Abram Onkgopotse Tiro , Vuyelwa Mashalaba and others, as well as Marxist Scientific Socialism . AZAPO was formed out of the prominent black consciousness organisations namely, Black People's Convention (BPC), the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and the Black Community Programmes (BCP). These were three of
2576-681: The Black Review , Black Voice , Black Perspective , and Creativity in Development . On top of building schools and day cares and taking part in other social projects, the BCM through the BCP was involved in the staging of the large-scale protests and workers' strikes that gripped the nation in 1972 and 1973, especially in Durban . Indeed, in 1973 the government of South Africa began to clamp down on
2688-680: The Ginsberg Education Fund. The trust fund assisted people regardless of political affiliation. In comparison with the Black Power movement in the United States, the Black Consciousness movement felt little need to reconstruct any sort of golden cultural heritage. African linguistic and cultural traditions were alive and well in the country. Short stories published predominantly in Drum magazine had led to
2800-770: The Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness . [Black Consciousness'] origins were deeply rooted in Christianity. In 1966, the Anglican Church under the incumbent, Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor , convened a meeting which later on led to the foundation of the University Christian Movement (UCM). This was to become the vehicle for Black Consciousness. The BCM attacked what they saw as traditional white values, especially
2912-628: The black consciousness movement , aimed at assisting people towards becoming self-sufficient. They presented this to the authorities as a project run by Thenjiwe Mtintso and the Border Council of Churches. The director of the fund was South African Students Organisation (SASO) leader Mapetla Mohapi. The fund succeeded with a brick making scheme in Dimbaza close to King William's Town . Other self-reliance projects included Zanempilo Community Health Care Centre , Njwaxa Leather-Works Project and
3024-643: The townships . In response, 176 of the child protesters were fatally shot by South African security forces and both outrage and unrest spread like wildfire throughout the country. Although it successfully implemented a system of comprehensive local committees to facilitate organised resistance, the BCM itself was decimated by security action taken against its leaders and social programs. By 19 June 1976, 123 key members had been banned and assigned to internal exile in remote rural districts. In 1977, all BCM related organisations were banned, many of its leaders arrested, and their social programs dismantled under provisions of
3136-404: The "condescending" values of white liberals. They refused to engage white liberal opinion on the pros and cons of black consciousness, and emphasised the rejection of white monopoly on truth as a central tenet of their movement While this philosophy at first generated disagreement amongst black anti-apartheid activists within South Africa, it was soon adopted by most as a positive development. As
3248-684: The 17 black consciousness organisations that were banned on Wednesday, 19 October 1977 for their role in the 16 June 1976 Soweto uprisings . A year after the formation of AZAPO, in September 1979, at its conference in Roodepoort, the national executive was elected with Curtis Nkondo as its president. During 1987, AZAPO was banned by the South African government and forced underground and into exile. It would be unbanned in 1990. In October 1994, AZAPO merged with its sister organisation in exile,
3360-487: The 1950s being called the Drum decade , and future Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer was beginning to become active. The fallout from the Sharpeville massacre led to many of those artists entering exile, but the political oppression of the resistance itself led to a new growth of black South African Literature. In the 1970s, Staffrider magazine became the dominant forum for the publication of BC literature, mostly in
3472-503: The 1960s. Such discontent gained traction, particularly after Brazil became a democracy in 1985. The movement focused especially on occupying land that was considered unproductive, thus showing that it was seeking overall social benefit. In the 1990s the influence of the MST grew tremendously following two mass killings of protestors. Successful protests were those in which the families of those occupying properties receiving plots of land. Although
Azanian People's Organisation - Misplaced Pages Continue
3584-541: The 1980s, the movement became far bigger. In 1981, 800 organizations pushed the government to reduce the military size. The push culminated in a protest by 300,000 people in the German capital Bonn. The movement was successful in producing a grassroots organization, the Coordination Committee, which directed the efforts of the peace movements in the following years. The committee ultimately failed to decrease
3696-571: The ANC did, but also from psychological transformation in the minds of black people themselves. This analysis suggested that to take power, black people had to believe in the value of their blackness. That is, if black people believed in democracy, but did not believe in their own value, they would not truly be committed to gaining power. Along these lines, Biko saw the struggle to build African consciousness as having two stages: "Psychological liberation" and "Physical liberation". While at times Biko embraced
3808-529: The ANC had disappeared. The term Black Consciousness stems from American academic W. E. B. DuBois 's evaluation of the double consciousness of black Americans, analyzing the internal conflict that black, or subordinated, people experience living in an oppressive society. Du Bois echoed Civil War era black nationalist Martin Delany 's insistence that black people take pride in their blackness as an important step in their personal liberation. This line of thought
3920-580: The ANC viewed white participation in its struggle as part of enacting the non-racial future for which it was fighting, the Black Consciousness view was that even well-intentioned white people often re-enacted the paternalism of the society in which they lived. This view held that in a profoundly racialised society, black people had to first liberate themselves and gain psychological, physical and political power for themselves before "non-racial" organisations could truly be non-racial. Biko's BCM had much in common with other left-wing African nationalist movements of
4032-513: The ANC's formal armed wing Umkhonto We Sizwe struggled to make gains, this new fearlessness became the basis of a new battle in the streets, in which larger and larger groups of ordinary and often unarmed people confronted the police and the army more and more aggressively. If the ANC could not defeat the white government's massive army with small bands of professional guerrilla fighters, it was able to eventually win power through ordinary black peoples' determination to make South Africa ungovernable by
4144-791: The Black Consciousness Media Workers Association joined the United Democratic Front (UDF). Many groups published important newsletters and journals, such as the Kwasala of the Black Consciousness Media Workers and the London-based BCMA journal Solidarity . And beyond these groups and media outlets, the Black Consciousness Movement had an extremely broad legacy, even as the movement itself
4256-479: The Black Consciousness Movement is as an intellectual movement. The weakness of theory in and of itself to mobilise constituencies can be seen in AZAPO 's inability to win significant electoral support in modern-day South Africa. But the strength of the ideas can be seen in the diffusion of Black Consciousness language and strategy into nearly every corner of black South African politics. In fact, these ideas helped make
4368-416: The Black Consciousness Movement itself was the development of black culture, and thus black literature. The cleavages in South African society were real, and the poets and writers of the BCM saw themselves as spokespersons for blacks in the country. They refused to be beholden to proper grammar and style, searching for black aesthetics and black literary values. The attempt to awaken a black cultural identity
4480-635: The Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA). AZAPO campaigned for the isolation of South Africa during its apartheid years by waging a "cultural boycott " in the country; black people increasingly regained their resolve to fight for their freedom and formed trade unions and civic organisations. The armed wing of AZAPO was the Azanian National Liberation Army (AZANLA) which received support and military training from Iran, Yugoslavia, China, Libya, Botswana, Palestine, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and Eritrea. AZANLA
4592-464: The Black Consciousness Movement provided a space for the "unity of South Africa's oppressed" in a way that the students defined for themselves. The movement stirred many blacks to confront not only the legal but also the cultural and psychological realities of Apartheid, seeking "not black visibility but real black participation" in society and in political struggles. The gains this movement made were widespread across South Africa. Many black people felt
Azanian People's Organisation - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-432: The Black Consciousness Movement to be illegal. Following this, many members joined more concretely political and tightly structured parties such as the ANC, which used underground cells to maintain their organisational integrity despite banning by the government. And it seemed to some that the key goals of Black Consciousness had been attained, in that black identity and psychological liberation were growing. Nonetheless, in
4816-572: The Black Consciousness Movement. And as the influence of the Black Consciousness Movement itself waned, the ANC was returning to its role as the clearly leading force in the resistance to white rule. Still more former members of the Black Consciousness Movement continued to join the ANC, including Thozamile Botha from PEBCO. Others formed new groups. For instance, in 1980, Pityana formed the Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), an avowedly Marxist group which used AZAPO as its political voice. Curtis Nkondo from AZAPO and many members of AZASO and
4928-540: The Chinese rural democracy movement of the 1980s and the German peace movement of the 1980s. A particular instantiation of grassroots politics in the American Civil Rights Movement was the 1951 case of William Van Til working on the integration of the Nashville Public Schools. Van Til worked to create a grassroots movement focused on discussing race relations at the local level. To that end, he founded
5040-519: The Democratic Party and disenchantment with the GOP. Defenders of the Tea Party cite polls that find substantial support, indicating that the movement has some basis in grassroots politics. Critics point to the corporate influence on the Tea Party, which they believe indicates that the movement is more top-down than the grassroots rhetoric would suggest. The Tea Party can be considered grassroots to
5152-514: The Movement sometimes mirror similar observations of the Black Consciousness Movement in the United States. On one side, it was argued that the Movement would stagnate into black racialism, aggravate racial tensions and attract repression by the apartheid regime. Further, the objective of the Movement was to perpetuate a racial divide – apartheid for the Blacks, equivalent to that which existed under
5264-587: The Nashville Community Relations Conference, which brought together leaders from various communities in Nashville to discuss the possibility of integration. In response to his attempts to network with leadership in the black community, residents of Nashville responded with violence and scare tactics. However, Van Til was still able to bring blacks and whites together to discuss the potential for changing race relations, and he
5376-587: The National Party rule. Other detractors thought the Movement-based heavily on student idealism, but with little grassroots support among the masses, and few consistent links to the mass trade-union movement. Assessments of the movement note that it failed to achieve several of its key objectives. It did not bring down the apartheid regime, nor did its appeal to other non-white groups as "people of color" gain much traction. Its focus on blackness as
5488-481: The National Union of South African Students organization which, although it was multiracial, was still "dominated" by white students. Even as the nation's leading opposition groups like the ANC proclaimed a commitment to armed struggle, their leaders had failed to organise a credible military effort. If their commitment to revolution had inspired many, the success of the white regime in squashing it had dampened
5600-505: The Republican nomination. He sparked a grassroots movement among young conservatives by presenting himself as honest, committed and a genuine politician. The majority of his campaign donations were made by individual supporters; and only one-third of donations were greater than $ 500. The junior United States senator and former Representative from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, formally announced his 2016 presidential campaign on May 26, 2015, on
5712-422: The U.S. There is an ongoing debate as to whether a bottom-up or top-down approach is better suited to address the problems facing communities. Top-down processing involves large-scale programs or high-level frameworks, often driven by governmental or international action. Top-down processing is great for tracking large scale causal relationships in environmental systems and it has better funding. Top-down processing
SECTION 50
#17327876525365824-580: The abuses that had been inflicted upon them. Far from crushing the movement, this led to its wider support among black and white South Africans. The Black Consciousness Movement heavily supported the protests against the policies of the apartheid regime which led to the Soweto uprising in June 1976. The protests began when it was decreed that black students be forced to learn Afrikaans , and that many secondary school classes were to be taught in that language. This
5936-477: The back door.... This poem by an unknown author has a rather confrontational look: Kaffer man, Kaffer nation Arise, arise from the kaffer Prepare yourself for war! We are about to start Steve Biko the hero of Mandlenkosi Langa 's poem: "Banned for Blackness" also calls for black resistance: Look up, black man, quit stuttering and shuffling Look up, black man, quit whining and stooping ...raise up your black fist in anger and vengeance. A main tenet of
6048-451: The black majority. Therefore, Biko's non-violence may be seen more as a tactic than a personal conviction. However, along with political action, a major component of the Black Consciousness Movement was its Black Community Programs, which included the organisation of community medical clinics, aiding entrepreneurs, and holding "consciousness" classes and adult education literacy classes. Another important component of psychological liberation
6160-491: The black person as a human being, dignified and proud of his blackness, in spite of the oppression of colonialism. The aim of this global movement of black thinkers was to build black consciousness and African consciousness, which they felt had been suppressed under colonialism . Part of the insight of the Black Consciousness Movement was in understanding that, black liberation would not only come from imagining and fighting for structural political changes, as older movements like
6272-577: The brutality of the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 caused many black people to embrace the idea of violent resistance to apartheid. However, although the ANC's armed wing started its campaign in 1962, no victory was in sight by the time that Steve Biko was a medical student in the late 1960s. This is because the organization was banned in 1960, preventing it from having a strong influence in South African politics for approximately two decades. During this same time, students of colour "marched out" of
6384-474: The campaign to challenge the Democratic front-runner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , before ultimately losing. Sanders used his grassroots campaign to receive more than 7 million individual contributions averaging $ 27, effectively breaking Barack Obama's previous individual contribution record in 2008. In 2015 the refugee crisis became front-page news across the world. Affected by images of
6496-426: The complexity of the South African black political world, which can be so daunting to the newcomer or the casual observer, into a strength. As the government tried to act against this organisation or that one, people in many organisations shared the general ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement, and these ideas helped to organise action beyond any specific organisational agenda. If the leader of this group or that one
6608-479: The electorate at large. Critics of Obama have argued that some of these methods are in fact astroturfing because they believe that Obama faked the grassroots support. For example, the Reason Foundation has accused Obama of planting astroturf supporters in town hall meetings. Many movements and organizations must be placed on a continuum between grassroots and astroturf instead of labeled entirely as one or
6720-556: The express purpose of bringing democracy to the local level of government. Reforms took the form of self-governing village committees that were elected in a competitive, democratic process. Xu Wang from Princeton University called the Congress mutually empowering for the state and the peasantry in that the state was given a renewed level of legitimacy by the democratic reforms and the peasantry was given far more political power. This manifested itself in increased voting rate, particularly for
6832-517: The extent that it comes from the people, but it is considered astroturfing to the extent that it is shaped by corporations and particularly wealthy individuals. The term "grassroots" is used by a number of sporting organizational bodies to reference the lowest, most elementary form of the game that anyone can play. Focusing on the grassroots of a sporting code can lead to greater participation numbers, greater support of professional teams/athletes and ultimately provide performance and financial benefits to
SECTION 60
#17327876525366944-580: The focus from moving problematic waste to changing the system that produced such waste. The movement is considered grassroots because it utilized strategies that derived their power from the affected communities. For example, in North Carolina, African American communities lay down in front of dump trucks to protest their environmental impact. The success of these movements largely remains to be seen. Grassroots movements use tactics that build power from local and community movements. Grassroots Campaigns,
7056-434: The form of poetry and short stories. Book clubs, youth associations, and clandestine street-to-street exchange became popular. Various authors explored the Soweto riots in novels, including Miriam Tlali , Mothobi Mutloatse and Mbulelo Mzamane . But the most compelling force in Black Consciousness prose was the short story, now adapted to teach political morals. Mtutuzeli Matshoba famously wrote, " Do not say to me that I am
7168-646: The formation of AZAPO in 1978, its chairman, Ishmael Mkhabela , and secretary, Lybon Mabasa were detained under the Terrorism Act. In the following years, other groups sharing Black Consciousness principles formed, including the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Azanian Student Organisation (AZASO) and the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO). While many of these organisations still exist in some form, some evolved and could no longer be called parts of
7280-445: The foundation of reversing "obscene levels" of income and wealth inequality. Sanders stated that he would run an issue-oriented and positive campaign, focusing his efforts on getting corporate money out of politics, raising taxes on the wealthy, guaranteeing tuition-free higher education, incorporating a single-payer healthcare system, fighting against climate change and other key issues. Those inspired by Sanders were able to elevate
7392-474: The full force of the security apparatus of the apartheid regime. "Black man, you are on your own" became the rallying cry as mushrooming activity committees implemented what was to become a relentless campaign of challenge to what was then referred to by the BCM as "the system". It eventually sparked a confrontation on 16 June 1976 in the Soweto uprising , when Black children marched to protest both linguistic imperialism and coercive Afrikaans medium education in
7504-442: The global stage. Founded on a deep sense of patriotism, Patriot Grassroots leverages cutting-edge technology to drive its operations. They specialize in a variety of campaign activities, including canvassing, signature gathering, calling and texting, and managing field teams. Additionally, they take on specialized relationship marketing projects for their clients, ensuring maximum outreach and impact. What sets Patriot Grassroots apart
7616-640: The grassroots efforts of the MST were successful in Brazil when they were tried by the South African Landless People's Movement (LPM) in 2001 they were not nearly as successful. Land occupations in South Africa were politically contentious and did not achieve the positive results seen by the MST. The National People's Congress was a grassroots democratic reform movement that came out of the existing Chinese government in 1987. It encouraged grassroots elections in villages all around China with
7728-619: The inhabitants there. Other volunteers journeyed to support refugees across the Balkans, Macedonia and the Greek islands. Grassroots aid filled voids and saved lives by plugging gaps in the system between governments and existing charities. The Axis of Justice (AofJ) is a not-for-profit group co-founded by Tom Morello and Serj Tankian. Its intended purpose is to promote social justice by connecting musicians and music enthusiasts to progressive grassroots ideals. The group appears at music festivals;
7840-488: The larger system of governance. The earliest origins of "grass roots" as a political metaphor are obscure. In the United States, an early use of the phrase "grassroots and boots" was thought to have been coined by Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana , who said of the Progressive Party in 1912, "This party has come from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people's hard necessities". In
7952-462: The local level to implement change at the local, regional, national, or international levels. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision-making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. Grassroots movements, using self-organization , encourage community members to contribute by taking responsibility and action for their community. Grassroots movements utilize
8064-408: The major organising principle was very much downplayed by Nelson Mandela and his successors who to the contrary emphasised the multi-racial balance needed for the post-apartheid nation. The community programs fostered by the movement were very small in scope and were subordinated to the demands of protest and indoctrination. Its leadership and structure was essentially liquidated, and it failed to bridge
8176-525: The months following Biko's death, activists continued to hold meetings to discuss resistance. Along with members of the BCM, a new generation of activists who had been inspired by the Soweto riots and Biko's death were present, including Bishop Desmond Tutu . Among the organisations that formed in these meetings to carry the torch of Black Consciousness was the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), which persists to this day. Almost immediately after
8288-556: The most prominent being Lollapalooza in 2003. The Axis of Justice most regularly appears whenever the bands System of a Down or Audioslave are performing. The group also has a podcast on XM Satellite radio and KPFK (90.7 FM), a Pacifica Radio station in Los Angeles, California. The AofJ's mission is to connect local music fans to organizations, local and global, aimed at effectively working on issues like peace, human rights and economic justice within communities. Patriot Grassroots
8400-431: The movement he helped start eventually took up violent resistance. White newspaper editor Donald Woods supported the movement and Biko, whom he had befriended, by leaving South Africa and exposing the truth behind Biko's death at the hands of police by publishing the book Biko . One month after Biko's death, on 19 October 1977, now known as "Black Wednesday" the South African government declared 19 groups associated with
8512-564: The movement such as Bennie Khoapa , Barney Pityana , Mapetla Mohapi , and Mamphela Ramphele joined Biko in establishing the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in 1970 as self-help groups for black communities, forming out of the South African Council of Churches and the Christian Institute . Their approach to development was strongly influenced by Paulo Freire . They also published various journals, including
8624-598: The movement, claiming that their ideas of black development were treasonous, and virtually the entire leadership of SASO and BCP were banned. In late August and September 1974, after holding rallies in support of the FRELIMO government which had taken power in Mozambique , many leaders of the BCM were arrested under the Terrorism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act, 1956 . Arrests under these laws allowed
8736-505: The new multi-racial South Africa. According to Pallo Jordan "The great tragedy of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was that it was never able to gather and retain much support beyond a narrow band of African intellectuals." Donald Woods , a white South African liberal, was close friends with Biko and a number of other senior figures in the BCM, but nevertheless expressed concern about what he regarded as "the unavoidably racist aspects of Black Consciousness". The Zimele Trust Fund
8848-503: The newly implemented Internal Security Amendment Act. On 12 September 1977, its banned National Leader, Steve Bantu Biko died from injuries that resulted from brutal assault while in the custody of the South African Police . The Black Consciousness Movement started to develop during the late 1960s, and was led by Steve Biko , Mamphela Ramphele , and Barney Pityana . During this period, which overlapped with apartheid,
8960-477: The non-violent tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. , this was not because Biko fully embraced their spiritually-based philosophies of non-violence. Rather, Biko knew that for his struggle to give rise to physical liberation, it was necessary that it exist within the political and military realities of the apartheid regime, in which the armed power of the white government outmatched that of
9072-453: The other. For example, Australia's Convoy of No Confidence, a movement seeking to force an early election in 2011, incorporated elements of grassroots infrastructure in its reliance on the anger and discontentment of the participants. It also had elements of astroturf, namely the large extent to which it relied on support from political elites in the opposition party. The Tea Party , a conservative force in American politics that began in 2009,
9184-636: The party is Nelvis Qekema who was elected at the 25th National Congress held at University of Johannesburg, Soweto on December 4, 2021. He succeeded Strike Thokoane who was elected as president of AZAPO in 2017, during the party's 23rd National Congress in Meadowlands, Soweto. In February 2022, AZAPO and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) announced a new unity pact with the intention to contest elections together. The party has had regular negotiations with SOPA aimed at merging
9296-462: The people. This focus manifested itself in the democratic institutions that focused on engaging the poor and in reform efforts that sought to make the government more responsive to the will of the people. Another instance of a historical grassroots movement was the 1980s German peace movement. The movement traces its roots to the 1950s movement opposing nuclear armament or the "Ban the Bomb" Movement. In
9408-512: The people; thus their strategies seek to engage ordinary people in political discourse to the greatest extent possible. Below is a list of strategies considered to be grassroots because of their focus on engaging the populace: Social media's prominence in political and social activism has skyrocketed in the last decade. Influencers on apps like Instagram and Twitter have all become hot spots for growing grassroots movements as platforms to inform, excite and organize. Another influential way media
9520-584: The plight of refugees arriving and travelling across Europe, the grassroots aid movement (otherwise known as the people-to-people or people solidarity movement), consisting of thousands of private individuals with no prior NGO experience, began in earnest to self-organise and form groups taking aid to areas of displaced persons. The first wave of early responders reached camps in Calais and Dunkirk in August 2015 and joined forces with existing local charities supporting
9632-464: The policy of apartheid, freedom of speech , and more rights for South African blacks who were oppressed by the white apartheid regime, but also black pride and a readiness to make blackness, rather than simple liberal democracy, the rallying point of unapologetically black organisations. Importantly, the group defined black to include other "people of color" in South Africa, most notably the large number of South Africans of Indian descent. In this way,
9744-419: The poor, and increased levels of political awareness according to Wang's research. One example of the increased accountability from the new institutions was a province in which villagers gave 99,000 suggestions to the local government. Ultimately, 78,000 of these were adopted indicating a high rate of governmental responsiveness. This movement is considered grassroots because it focuses on systematically empowering
9856-505: The reality of black peoples lives in order to portray the broad spectrum of problems black people faced. Black Viewpoint was a literature addition to the Black Community Programmes. The editorial wrote reviews and gave feedback on the different black Community Programmes that were taking place such as the Zanempilo Community Health Care Centre . Black Review was banned prior to Biko's banning. This
9968-1010: The size of the German military, but it laid the groundwork for protests of the Iraq war in the 2000s. Further, the movement started public dialogue about policy directed at peace and security. Like the Civil Rights Movement, the German Peace movement is considered grassroots because it focused on political change starting at the local level. Another example of grassroots in the 1980s was the Citizens Clearinghouse for Natural Waste, an organization that united communities and various grassroots groups in America in support of more environmentally friendly methods of dealing with natural waste. The movement focused especially on African American communities and other minorities. It sought to bring awareness to those communities and alter
10080-482: The size of the federal government, lowering taxes, promoting free enterprise and a strong commitment to U.S. global leadership and fighting communism, which appealed strongly to conservatives in the Republican Party. Despite vehement opposition from the leaders of his party's dominant moderate-liberal wing, such as New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and Michigan governor George Romney ; Goldwater secured
10192-432: The spirits of many. It was in this context that black students, Biko most notable among them, began critiquing the liberal whites with whom they worked in anti-apartheid student groups, as well as the official non-racialism of the ANC. They saw progress towards power as requiring the development of black power distinct from supposedly "non-racial groups". This new Black Consciousness Movement not only called for resistance to
10304-480: The start up costs income gathering families. This assisted in economically restabilising the families of those with "political" criminal records as many communities branded these activists as trouble makers, making it difficult for them to secure employment. The Trust fund also supported families through bursaries and scholarships for activists children as activists struggled to secure bursaries and scholarships for their children due to stigmatisation. The trust, much like
10416-407: The suspension of the doctrine of habeas corpus , and many of those arrested were not formally charged until the next year, resulting in the arrest of the "Pretoria Twelve" and conviction of the " SASO nine ", which included Aubrey Mokoape and Patrick Lekota . These were the most prominent among various public trials that gave a forum for members of the BCM to explain their philosophy and to describe
10528-538: The time, such as Amílcar Cabral 's PAIGC and Huey Newton 's Black Panther Party . In 1959, just leading up to this period, the National Party (NP) established universities that were exclusively for black students. This action aligned with the Party's goal of ensuring racial segregation in all educational systems. Although the ANC and others opposed to apartheid had initially focused on non-violent campaigns,
10640-423: The trainings and workshops" -- this "empowers participants." Bottom-up approaches are often not impactful beyond local settings. Grassroots organizations take on a bottom-up approach as they often allow for direct community participation. Grassroots movements are usually criticized because the recent rise in social media has resulted in leaderless and horizontal movements. Some argue that social movements without
10752-448: The tribal gap in any *large-scale* way, although certainly small groups and individuals collaborated across tribes. After much blood shed and property destroyed, critics charged that the Movement did nothing more than raise "awareness" of some issues, while accomplishing little in the way of sustained mass organisation, or of practical benefit for the masses. Some detractors also assert that Black consciousness ideas are out-dated, hindering
10864-483: The two parties, but these broke down in 2004, 2007 and again in 2013. Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement ( BCM ) was a grassroots anti- apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after
10976-417: The way, although Sempala turned to prose after Soweto. Serote wrote from exile of his internalisation of the struggles, while Gwala's work was informed and inspired by the difficulty of life in his home township of Mpumalanga near Durban . These forerunners inspired a myriad of followers, most notably poet-performance artist Ingoapele Madingoane . Adam Small is noted as a Coloured South African writer who
11088-561: Was a compilation of essays that were written by black people for black people. The author was Njabulo Ndebele and was published in 1972 by the Spros-Cas Black Community Programmes. Steve Biko wrote the introduction. It includes "Black Development Day" written by Njabulo Ndebele , "New Day" written by C. M. C Ndamse, "Kwa-Zulu Development" written by Chief M. G Buthelezi and "The New Black" written by Bennie A. Khoapa . Another similar magazine publication
11200-704: Was a trust fund created by the black consciousness movement to fund black community programmes (BCP's). Many of the community programmes that were funded were located in rural areas in the Eastern Cape and some in Kwa-Zulu Natal . In May 1972, the Black Consciousness movement sponsored a church conference which aimed at creating a more "black orientated" perspective of the Christian gospel. Church organizations assisted BCPs and many BCPs assisted religious organisations to run church programmes. This resulted in
11312-582: Was also reflected in the Pan-Africanist , Marcus Garvey , as well as Harlem Renaissance philosopher Alain Locke and in the salons of the sisters, Paulette and Jane Nardal in Paris. Biko's understanding of these thinkers was further shaped through the lens of postcolonial thinkers such as Frantz Fanon , Léopold Senghor , and Aimé Césaire . Biko reflects the concern for the existential struggle of
11424-413: Was another encroachment against the black population, which generally spoke indigenous languages like Zulu and Xhosa at home, and saw English as offering more prospects for mobility and economic self-sufficiency than did Afrikaans . And the notion that Afrikaans was to define the national identity stood directly against the BCM principle of the development of a unique black identity. The protest began as
11536-520: Was founded in the 1970s and has grown into an international organization. The MST focused on organizing young farmers and their children in fighting for a variety of rights, most notably the right to access land. The movement sought organic leaders and used strategies of direct action such as land occupations. It largely maintained autonomy from the Brazilian government. The MST traces its roots to discontent arising from large land inequalities in Brazil in
11648-454: Was invited, but refused to participate in, the negotiations to end apartheid , a decision which led to the resignation of two senior members, Monwabisi Vuza and Imraan Moosa. The party then boycotted the 1994 elections , but has participated in each of the elections since then. AZAPO won one seat in each of the 1999 , 2004 and 2009 elections, but failed to win a seat in the 2014 general election . The current leader (National President) of
11760-546: Was involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and wrote works in Afrikaans and English dealing with racial discrimination. James Mathews was a part of the Drum decade who was especially influential to the Black Consciousness Movement. This poem gives an idea of the frustrations that blacks felt under apartheid: Freedom's child You have been denied too long Fill your lungs and cry rage Step forward and take your rightful place You are not going to grow up knocking at
11872-402: Was largely successful both in disseminating the information through think tanks and in disguising the true nature of the think tanks. More controversial examples of astroturfing often exhibit some characteristics of a real grassroots organization, but also characteristics of astroturf. Many of President Obama's efforts, for example, have been deemed grassroots because of their focus on involving
11984-497: Was no longer represented by a single organisation. While the Black Consciousness Movement itself spawned an array of smaller groups, many people who came of age as activists in the Black Consciousness Movement did not join them. Instead, they joined other organisations, including the ANC, the Unity Movement , the Pan Africanist Congress , the United Democratic Front and trade and civic unions. The most lasting legacy of
12096-464: Was the Frank Talk , it was published in 1984. Several issues of the journal were banned for distribution due to government legislation however, they were later unbanned. Grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from
12208-556: Was thrown into prison, nonetheless, more and more black South Africans agreed on the importance of black leadership and active resistance. Partly as a result, the difficult goal of unity in struggle became more and more realised through the late 1970s and 1980s. Biko and the legacy of the Black Consciousness Movement helped give the resistance a culture of fearlessness. And its emphasis on individual psychological pride helped ordinary people realise they could not wait for distant leaders (who were often exiled or in prison) to liberate them. As
12320-445: Was thus inextricably tied up with the development of black literature. This paper was consisted of an analysis of political trends. It was edited by Steve Biko and published in 1972. The editorial was created for the purposes of protecting the interests of black people. Members of the BCM found that there were very few publications in South Africa that were written, directed and produced by black writers. The articles were juxtaposed to
12432-500: Was to embrace blackness by insisting that black people lead movements of black liberation. This meant rejecting the fervent " non-racialism " of the ANC in favour of asking whites to understand and support, but not to take leadership in, the Black Consciousness Movement. A parallel can be seen in the United States, where student leaders of later phases of SNCC , and black nationalists such as Malcolm X , rejected white participation in organisations that intended to build black power . While
12544-538: Was ultimately instrumental in integrating the Peabody College of Education in Nashville. Furthermore, the desegregation plan proposed by Van Til's Conference was implemented by Nashville schools in 1957. This movement is characterized as grassroots because it focused on changing a norm at the local level using local power. Van Til worked with local organizations to foster political dialogue and was ultimately successful. The Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST)
#535464