Ndabaningi Sithole

Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole {pronunciation: nda-ba-nin-gee see-to-le} (31 July 1920 – 12 December 2000) founded the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), a militant organisation that opposed the government of Rhodesia, in July 1963. A member of the Ndau ethnic group (more closely tied to the Mashona than the Ndebele who supported the ZAPU), he also worked as a Methodist minister. He spent 10 years in prison after the government banned ZANU. A rift along tribal lines split ZANU in 1975, and he lost the 1980 elections to Robert Mugabe.

Sithole was born in Nyamandhlovu, Southern Rhodesia. He studied teaching in the United States from 1955 to 1958, and was ordained a Methodist minister in 1958. The publication of his book African Nationalism and its immediate prohibition by the minority government motivated his entry into politics. During his studies in the USA he studied at the Andover Newton Theological School and attended the First Church in Newton, founded in 1665, both located in Newton, Massachusetts.

He founded and was chief architect of Zimbabwe African National Union party in August 1963 in conjunction with Herbert Chitepo, Robert Mugabe and Edgar Tekere in the Highfields House of Enos Nkala. In 1964 there was a party Congress at Gwelo, where Sithole was elected president and appointed Robert Mugabe to be his secretary general. ZANU was banned in 1964 by Ian Smith's government. He spent 10 years in prison after being arrested on 22 June 1964 alongside Mugabe, Tekere, Nyagumbo and Takawira for his political activities. While in prison he specifically authorised Chitepo to continue the struggle from abroad as a representative of ZANU. Sithole was convicted on a charge of plotting to assassinate Ian Smith and released from prison in 1974.

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