The ANC's Early Years: Nation, Class and Place in South Africa before 1940

by Peter Limb

Overview

The African National Congress (ANC) is the oldest and most durable of African nationalist movements, not only in South Africa but also across the continent. Since 1994, it has governed the country as leader of the Tripartite Alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and South African Communist Party (SACP). The early decades of the twentieth century saw the establishment, survival, and growth of ANC and black labour organisations.

This book focuses on the formative period of engagement of these political and socioeconomic forces before permanent alliances emerged. It analyses the ANC’s attitudes and relationships with the nascent formations of the black working class, with particular attention to the most conscious and active workers. The subject matter in this book also discusses migrant, rural, domestic, and women workers – not always then clearly defined as part of a formal ‘working class’.

Print editions not for sale in Sub-Saharan Africa. This book is part of Routledge’s co-published series 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, in collaboration with UNISA Press, which reflects on the past years of a democratic South Africa and assesses the future opportunities and challenges.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040310069
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/02/2024
Series:	30 Years of Democracy in South Africa
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	608

Table of Contents

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Illustrations

Sources of illustrations

Tables

Preface

1. Introduction

Part 1: Nation, Class, and Place in South African History

2. Perspectives on ANC-Labour History

3. Black Labour in South Africa to 1940

4. Early African Political Organisations and Black Labour

Part 2: The ANC and Labour, the First Decade

5. The SANNC and African Working People

6. To “Heartily … Assist the Working Movement as Best They Can”: Congress and Black Labour in the Transvaal, 1912-1919

7. “Join Our Union—You Will Find Good Result”: Congress and Labour in the Cape, Natal and Free State, 1912–1919

Part 3: The Second Decade

8. “A Strong Seed in a Stony Bed”: The 1920s

9. “The Ruling Class is Getting Lost in the Mist and Sea of Selfishness”: Natal in the 1920s

Chapter 10 “I-Kongilesi Lilizwi ezindlwini” (Congress’s Name is Household): The Transvaal, Cape and Orange Free State in the 1920s

Part 4: The Third Decade

11. From “Culpable Inertia” to Rebuilding: The ANC and Labour in the 1930s

12. Moderate Centre, Militant Province? The Cape in the 1930s

13. “A Very, Very Wide Influence, Even When … Dead”: The Transvaal, Natal, and Orange Free State in the 1930s

Conclusion

Select Bibliography

Index