Episode notes

In this first part of a two-part episode series talking about the 1973 Durban Strikes, we set some contextual background and learn how labor issues played a major role in fueling apartheid. In this episode we learn about the colonial interests in the region, the various laws passed well before Apartheid that set the precedent, the rise of Afrikaner nationalism, and the strategy of the National Party. This was a party that capitalized on a failed, repressed strike led by white miners and harnessed the growing anger of a poor white voting base to put forward a platform of formalized segregation that tried to keep Black African working power repressed. And that inadvertently made working organizing such a powerful tool to ending apartheid, leading to major actions like the Durban Strikes.

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Keywords
Labor historyLaborLabor rightsWildcatMigrant LaborMigrant WorkersColonialismlabor organizingSouth Africa