ABSTRACT
The Alexander Defence Committee (ADC) was an international organisation that protested apartheid and assisted South African political prisoners and their families, formed after Neville Alexander and ten others were arrested in July 1963 and convicted for ‘acts of sabotage’.
The records of the New York City-based ADC and those of several chapters and other organisations, held at the Wisconsin Historical Society, constitute an underexplored archive of an international anti-apartheid solidarity organisation, and offer lessons from past struggles for activists and their archival practices today. This chapter draws on the little-known letters of Alexander’s mother, Dimbiti Bisho Alexander, to explain how the ADC used them to publicise its work and fundraise for prisoners’ families.
The chapter documents the ADC’s financial and moral support for apartheid’s victims regardless of differing views about achieving a free and democratic South Africa. Alexander and his colleagues were members of the National Liberation Front, and connected to the Unity Movement and related organisations such as the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa (APDUSA) before their expulsion for embarking on the armed struggle. Nevertheless, campaign posters reveal that ADC fundraising tours publicised the evils of apartheid and opposed the South African government more generally.
