I have joined my people in the new spirit that moves them today, the spirit that revolts openly and boldly against injustice and expresses itself in … - Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli

We meet here to express our deep resentment at the claim made by South Africa though its governments and parliaments since the union, to determine and shape our destiny without consulting our wishes, and arrogantly to assign us a position of permanent inferiority in our land, contrary to the plan and purpose of God our Creator, who created "all men equal." And into us too, not to whites only, He breathed the divine spirit of human dignity. And so we have every human and moral right to resist laws and policies which create a climate inimical to the full development of our personalities as individuals, and our development as a people.

My only painful concern at times is that of the welfare of my family but I try even in this regard, in a spirit of trust and surrender to God's will as I see it, to say: "God will provide." It is inevitable that in working for Freedom some individuals and some families must take the lead and suffer: The Road to Freedom is via the CROSS.

"Laws and conditions that tend to debase human personality - a God-given force - be they brought about by the State or other individuals, must be relentlessly opposed in the spirit of defiance shown by St. Peter when he said to the rulers of his day: "Shall we obey God or man?" No one can deny that in so far as non-Whites are concerned in the Union of South Africa, laws and conditions that debase human personality abound.