African National Congress Oral History Transcripts Collection

On March 8, 1999, the University of Connecticut signed a partnership agreement with the ANC to promote international understanding and cooperation based on the principle of reciprocal learning and consultation. The Memorandum of Understanding Between the University of Connecticut and the African National Congress established a number of initiatives including the creation of the Comparative Human Rights Program (which later became the UNESCO Chair and Institute of Comparative Human Rights), the ANC Archives Project, and the ANC Oral History Project.

The goals of the ANC Archives Project were to share knowledge and expertise in archival administration, as well as to “acquire, make accessible, preserve and publicize materials dealing with the African National Congress and human rights.” South African delegates were sent to UConn beginning in 1999 to learn archival techniques and receive training from the staff of Archives & Special Collections. In 2000, archivists from the University of Connecticut traveled to South Africa to assess the conditions of the ANC collections housed at the University of Fort Hare, as well as to assist in the development of a long term preservation strategy. Another element of the project was to research the locations of ANC materials held repositories in North America and to “assist in obtaining copies or returning collections to South Africa” (Memorandum of Understanding Between the University of Connecticut and the African National Congress, 1999).

The ANC Oral History Project was designed to preserve accounts of the lives and struggles of those who fought apartheid in South Africa. In October 2000, Bruce Stave, Director of the Center for Oral History at the University of Connecticut traveled to Cape Town, South Africa with three assistants and conducted an intensive oral history training workshop over four weeks. The first two weeks of the program consisted of a training seminar on oral history procedure. During the final two weeks of the program, the participants conducted 40 interviews followed by an evaluation workshop on the oral histories. Narissa Ramdhani, archivist for the African National Congress, and an alumna of the University of Connecticut, oversaw the interviews in South Africa. The initial participants of the oral history training program included Loyiso Pulumani, Portia Matalala, Lungelwa Madyibi, Moses Hadebe, and Zanele Riba. The interviews continued over the next six years. As part of the partnership, 133 interview transcripts arrived at the University of Connecticut in March of 2007. The original transcripts and cassette tapes are held at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa.