George Nyandoro

Who was George Nyandoro?

George Bodzo Nyandoro was a Zimbabwean politician and activist in the struggle to end white minority rule in Rhodesia. Nyandoro was one of the founders of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress and served as the General Secretary of the Zimbabwe African People's Union.

As a founder member of the earliest nationalist parties, his struggle against colonial domination dates back to the 1950s.

An ethnic Shona, Nyandoro was born in 1926 in the Chihota Reserve and came from a background which made resistance to political domination by whites a family tradition.

He developed a keen interest in public affairs at an early age by joining the British African National Voice Association and later the Inter-Racial Association.

Driven by an insatiable thirst to fight for freedom from colonial domination, Nyandoro joined James Chikerema, Edison Sithole and others in founding the African National Youth League in 1955. In effect, the organization became the first step in the creation of a full-scale nationalist movement in Rhodesia.

By 1956 he refused a well-paid job as a bookkeeper with an airline company to pursue politics on a full-time basis. When the ANLY fused with the old SRANC to form a broad national movement, also called the African National Congress, Nyandoro was elected its Secretary-General in recognition of his value both as a thinker and a man of action.