Founders of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) were alive to the significance of writing, composing freedom songs and reading-in short of disseminating ideas. This view is affirmed by amongst others the South African writer and scholar Njabulo Ndebele who wrote in the 1980s that, ‘no people that has not set in motion its vast powers of reflection will have any systematic control whatsoever on its destiny’. Attorney, writer and activist Christine Qunta, concur and writes that ‘physical resistance to colonialism has always had an intellectual base in South Africa, allowing those involved in the struggle to create a framework for the struggle.’

Publications of the PAC allow one to map and reflect on the history, content, form of the authors and readers such as the Bureau of African Nationalism (The Bulletin) in 1952 leading to the publication of The Africanist from 1957 to 1960. Following the banning of the PAC in 1960, the publication was subsequently issued in Lesotho and Zambia. The Africanist was renamed  Azania News, issued from Dar es Salaam from 1966 until 1994.