Anton Lembede (1913-1947) helped revitalize and provided much of the philosophical foundation for black resistance to white supremacy in South Africa in the mid-20th century.

Anton Muziwakhe Lembede grew up in a South Africa in which the black population was being stripped systematically of its land and basic rights. In the year of his birth (1913) the white government deprived blacks of access to most of the country's land, though they comprised 80 percent of the population. As South Africa became increasingly industrialized, rural whites and blacks, pushed off the land by poverty, migrated to the cities to fill the growing demand for labor. To protect whites from job competition, the government's "Civilized Labour" policy of 1924 barred blacks from many trades. In the 1930s blacks' few voting rights were curtailed, as was their right to settle permanently in cities. The climax of discrimination occurred in 1948, when the newly elected...