Nyasaland African Congress Nyasaland African Congress The Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was an organisation that evolved into a political party in Nyasaland during the colonial period. The NAC was suppressed in 1959, but was succeeded in 1960 by the Malawi Congress Party, which went to on decisively win the first universal suffrage elections in 1961, and to lead the country to independence as Malawi in 1964. The North Nyasa Native Association when it was formed in 1912, the first of several such associations of educated "natives". Levi Zililo Mumba was elected secretary. Mumba was the architect of many of these associations, which had
Nyasaland colonial authorities. A growing educated African elite became increasingly vocal and politically active from the 1930s, first through associations, and after 1944, through the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC). There was a marked increase in civil agitation when Nyasaland was forced into a Federation with Southern and Northern Rhodesia in 1953. The failure of the NAC to prevent this caused its collapse. It was revived not long afterwards by a younger and more militant generation which, ultimately, invited Hastings Banda to return to the country and lead it to independence. The 1911 census was the first after the protectorate was renamed