The 1946 Durban ?Riots ?- A case- Study in Race and Class - E.C. Webster

This paper was written as a response to the somewhat abstract discussions that sometimes take place in university seminars on the relative weight of class, race and ethnicity in explaining human behaviour. It rests on the assumption that conceptual clarification has limited value, unless conceptual analysis is followed by a concrete historical or sociological analysis of a particular social situation. The Durban 'riots' of 1949 was chosen as a case-study because it has been widely used by 'separate' development theorists' as an example of the inevitability of conflict between the races, without any attempt being made to relate this conflict to the political economy...Read more

The 1946 African Mine-Workers' Strike in the Political Economy of South Africa - D. O'Meara

On Monday August 12th 1946, in response to call by the African Mine Workers Union, over 60,000 African miners on the Witwatersrand Mines struck work. The following day, the Transvaal Council of Non-European Trade Unions called for a General Strike of Black worker. Police were used to break the Strike, and by Saturday 17 th the last of the strikers were back at work. As a result of police action, 12 Africans were reported killed and over 1,000 injured. None of the strikers' demands were met, and fizzled out an apparent failure ... Read more