South Africa's Alternative Press: Voices of Protest and Resistance, 1880–1960

by Edited by Les Switzer

• ISBN13: 9780521108553
• ISBN10: 0521108551
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-09
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is the first full-length study of the protest-cum-resistance press and its role in the struggle for a democratic South Africa between the 1880s and 1960s. South Africa's alternative press played a crucial, but still largely undocumented, role in the making of modern South Africa. Projecting the point of view of intermediary social groups, who saw themselves as a modernising, upwardly mobile non-ethnic force in the struggle to create a black middle-class culture in South Africa, these presses mirrored political realities that differed substantially from those projected by South Africa's established commercial press, which was owned and controlled by whites, and concerned almost exclusively with the political, economic and social life of the white population. An important venue for an emerging black literary tradition, these alternative presses also constitute a unique political and social archive.

Table of Contents

Introduction: South Africa's alternative press in perspective

An Independent Protest Press, 1880s-1930s

The beginnings of African protest journalism at the cape

Qude maniki! John L. Dube, Pioneer Editor of Ilanga

From advocacy to mobilisation: Indian opinion, 1903-1914

Voice of the coloured _lite: APO, 1919-1923

Moderate and militant voices in the African nationalist press during the 1920s

Bantu world and the origins of a captive African commercial press

From Protest to Resistance, 1940s-1960s

Under seige: Inkundla Ya Bantu and the African nationalist movement, 1938-1951

The Sophiatown generation: black literary journalism during the 1950s

Socialism and the resistance movement: the life and times of The Guardian, 1937-1952

Writing left: the journalism of Ruth First and The Guardian in the 1950s

Inkululeko: organ of the communist party of South Africa, 1939-1950

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