In 1946, the Federation of African Welfare Societies was formed, uniting the Welfare Societies that had been set up by educated Africans in towns in the 1930s to discuss local affairs in English. In 1948 the Federation changed its name to the Northern Rhodesia Congress and Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, who had an aristocratic Barotse background, became its first president. In the late 1940s several local trade unions representing African miners merged to form the Northern Rhodesian African Mineworkers' Union. Under Mbikusita Lewanika, Congress gradually developed as a political force. It had some radical policies, but Mbikusita Lewanika favoured gradualism and dialogue with the settler minority. In 1950 and 1951 he failed to deliver a strong anti-Federation message and in 1951 Mbikusita Lewanika was voted out of office and replaced by the more radical Harry Nkumbula.R. I. Rotberg, (1965). The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, pp. 226, 229–34, 269–70.
