Lusaka lies at the junction of the Great North Road (to Tanzania) and the Great East Road (to Malawi) and serves as Zambia’s center of commerce and government. Originally, the site was occupied by a village named after Chief Lusaka of the old Soli state. When the British took over and formed the Northern Rhodesia protectorate, they expanded the area with the building of a new railway system. Capital-designation in 1935, replacing Livingston, brought major development to the infrastructure of the city, which was connected through train and road to all major parts of the country. The city figured prominently throughout the movement for independence: in 1948 the Northern Rhodesian Congress was founded here by the Federation of African Societies. Lusaka also represented a hub for the civil disobedience movement that in the 1960s led to the collapse of the Northern and Southern Rhodesia federation and to the creation of the Republic of Zambia. By 1966 the capital of Zambia had emerged as the center of anti-colonial resistance for most of Southern Africa, becoming headquarter of South Africa’s major anti-apartheid organization, the African National Congress.