Born 1927. With Elliot Tonjeni, Bransby Ndobe did much to organise African National Congress (ANC) branches between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and also to radicalise Coloured farm workers. A member of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union in its heyday and also of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) until about 1929, he supported J. T. Gumede's policy of closer cooperation between the ANC and the CPSA. He was a rival of James Thaele in the western Cape and eventually led his supporters into a short-lived Independent ANC in 1930, after being ousted by Thaele from the position of ANC provincial secretary. Shortly afterward he was deported to Basutoland (now Lesotho).
