Nyasaland African Congress

The Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was an organisation that evolved into a political party in Nyasaland during the colonial period. The NAC was suppressed in 1959, but was succeeded in 1960 by the Malawi Congress Party, which went to on decisively win the first universal suffrage elections in 1961, and to lead the country to independence as Malawi in 1964.

The North Nyasa Native Association when it was formed in 1912, the first of several such associations of educated "natives". Levi Zililo Mumba was elected secretary. Mumba was the architect of many of these associations, which had very similar constitutions, established in the 1920s and early 1930s. The Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was organised in 1943 by leaders of the Nyasaland Native Associations, with Mumba and James Frederick Sangala of Blantyre the prime movers. The NAC was the first organisation that attempted to work at a national level. At first named the Nyasaland Educated African Council, a few months later the Council renamed itself the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) at the urging of Sangala, who felt the movement should not be restricted to the educated elite.

The NAC was intended to be an umbrella organisation that would co-ordinate the Native Associations and other local organisations of indigenous people in the protectorate of Nyasaland. Each of these groups had a seat on the executive committee. However, the organisation was weak. When a special committee recommended acceptance of Dr. Hastings Banda's proposal that the NAC should have a full-time paid secretary, the proposal was rejected overwhelmingly, perhaps due to suspicion of Banda's motives.

At the inaugural meeting of the Congress held in Blantyre in October 1944, Mumba was elected President-General. Sangala had recently been transferred to Dedza in the Central province and was unable to attend, but was elected to the central committee. As with most members of the Congress, Mumba was privileged to come from a respected family and to have mission education. The leaders of the Congress included pastors and teachers such as Mumba from the earlier Associations, but tended to now also include civil servants, clerks and businessmen. Soon after being elected, in January 1945 Mumba died. He was succeeded by Charles Matinga. Without the leadership of Mumba and of Isaac Lawrence, who also died around that time, the congress lost momentum.

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