Traces Oliver Tambo's role as a leader of the legal ANC through the Defiance Campaign, the Congress of the People and the Treason Trial, and his evolution from militant “Africanism” towards acceptance of the idea of the ANC as open to people of different racial groups and political persuasions.

This book traces Oliver Tambo's role as a leader of the legal ANC through the Defiance Campaign, the Congress of the People and the Treason Trial, and his evolution from militant 'Africanism' towards acceptance of the idea of the ANC as open to people of different racial groups and political persuasions. The book also traces his role from the aftermath of Sharpeville in 1960 as, for 30 years, the pre-eminent leader of the ANC in exile in London, Tanzania and Zambia. It shows how, placing himself at the political center of the organisation, he held the ANC together through great difficulties, managing its relations with African states and great powers, and steering it towards the negotiated end of apartheid.