Unisa Press

The ANC's early years

Nation, class and place in South Africa before 1940

Author: Peter Limb
Published: January 04, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-86888-529-9
Number of pages: 608
Contact:

To buy the book contact UNISA Press on +27 (0) 12 429 3515/3448
How to buy:

To buy the book contact UNISA Press on +27 (0) 12 429 3515/3448
This book is also available in electronic format
ISBN: 978186888-8825
How to buy:

Book is not available in e-book format, for more information please contact UNISA Press to buy the book on +27 (0) 12 429 3515/3448

About the book

At a time when African National Congress alliance politics are again prominent in South Africa, this nuanced study of the intersection of class and African national forces in the history of Africa’s oldest national liberation movement helps explain the deeper origins of this alliance.

The book squarely places African agency at the centre of South African history and re-casts the story of the ANC in the words and actions of its own members and supporters at local and regional, as well as national, levels. In doing so, it shines a long overdue light on ordinary black activists, including politicised workers and women, and integrates these stories with those of more well-known leaders.

‘Peter Limb’s strikingly original and important book helps recover the voice of both national and regional ANC leaders (and, indirectly, that of workers) before 1940 and the exploration of the social origins, class background and identity of ANC leaders provides a means of contextualising and explaining ANC leaders’ attitudes to, and political relationship with, the laboring poor.’
- Paul La Hausse de Lalouvière, University of Cambridge

Table of content

Abbreviations and Acronyms vii
Illustrations viii
Sources of illustrations ix
Tables ix
Preface xi
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Part 1: Nation, Class, and Place in South African History 5
Chapter 2 Perspectives on ANC-Labour History 7
Chapter 3 Black Labour in South Africa to 1940 41
Chapter 4 Early African Political Organisations and Black Labour 75
Part 2: The ANC and Labour, the First Decade 113
Chapter 5 The SANNC and African Working People 115
Chapter 6 To “Heartily … Assist the Working Movement as Best They Can”: Congress and Black Labour in the Transvaal, 1912-1919 155
Chapter 7 “Join Our Union—You Will Find Good Result”:Congress and Labour in the Cape, Natal and Free State, 1912–1919 201
Part 3: The Second Decade 233
Chapter 8 “A Strong Seed in a Stony Bed”: The 1920s 235
Chapter 9 “The Ruling Class is Getting Lost in the Mist and Sea of Selfishness”: Natal in the 1920s 289
Chapter 10 “I-Kongilesi Lilizwi ezindlwini” (Congress’s Name is Household): The Transvaal,Cape and Orange Free State in the 1920s 309
Part 4: The Third Decade 357
Chapter 11 From “Culpable Inertia” to Rebuilding: The ANC and Labour in the 1930s 359
Chapter 12 Moderate Centre, Militant Province? The Cape in the 1930s 415
Chapter 13 “A Very, Very Wide Influence, Even When … Dead”: The Transvaal, Natal, and Orange Free State in the 1930s 445
Conclusion 483
Select Bibliography 495
Index 543

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