Restoring human dignity and building self-reliance: Youth, women, and churches and Black Consciousness community development, South Africa, 1969--1977

This dissertation explores the community development ideas and practices of South Africa's Black Consciousness movement, a leading anti-apartheid force in the late 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on the Black Community Programs (BCP) organization and three of its most important projects: the Zanempilo Community Health Center and the Njwaxa leather-work factory (both in the rural Eastern Cape), and the BCP's annual publication, Black Review. Based on South African archival sources and over seventy oral history interviews, it evaluates the BCP's social and economic impact and the key role of youth, women and churches in supporting and carrying out these projects. It argues that Black Consciousness activists took an innovative, participatory approach to development that combined their philosophy of black psychological liberation and self-reliance with the transnational ideas and methodology of Brazil's Paulo Freire. When putting their philosophy and methods into practice, activists faced state repression, tensions within local black communities, and contradictions emerged between their avowed self-reliance and their use of so-called white liberal resources. The study further concludes that although short-lived, Black Consciousness community work succeeded in improving the material conditions of individuals and communities and strengthening their sense of self-worth and self-reliance.;This study speaks to the historiography on Black Consciousness and South African liberation movements. Previous scholarly literature has failed to address Black Consciousness community development adequately. Yet, it was an integral part of the movement from its beginning to 1977 (when all Black Consciousness organizations were shut down by the government). This study helps us understand more about the activists and their relationships with each other and the broader black community. It also adds to the history of rural South Africa while demonstrating the importance of oral history and grassroots activities and actors in the history of political and social movements.;The first two chapters lay the background of community work and the Black Consciousness philosophy. Chapter 1 examines the place of community work in the philosophy and South African Student's Organization. Chapter 2 documents and analyzes the founding of the BCP as part of the Black Consciousness movement and the ecumenical, Christian organizations that sponsored it. The next three chapters are case studies. The Zanempilo clinic represents the health initiatives of the BCP and serves as an illustration of the Black Consciousness holistic approach to development. Chapter 4 analyzes how the BCP intended for their publications and resource centers to serve as development tools by publishing from a black perspective and contributing to an informal program of education. Chapter 5 compares the BCP effort to establish a home-industry in Njwaxa to other government and white business development efforts in the Ciskei. Through the case studies, the dissertation analyzes how the BCP dealt with its challenges, repositions youth and women in rural Eastern Cape history, and assesses the BCP's social and economic impact.