This chapter outlines the emergence of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) and its complex and contradictory relations with African working peoples in the second decade of the twentieth century. It does so from the perspective of national African politics (provincial and local politics are discussed in the next two chapters). It addresses themes essential to any potential Congress liaison with workers: SANNC national organisation and its policies and attitudes towards labour. It argues that members paid considerable attention to labour and it will become evident that some leaders at an early stage in their careers expressed sympathetic sentiments towards black workers. Thinly documented, yet tangible, ties between certain politicised workers and Congress emerged from these early contacts. Commitment to the alleviation of the plight of black labour followed from the logic of Congress's basic policies.

To draw public attention to conditions of Africans, Congress used various avenues, including government commissions, the press, mass meetings, and other political or industrial organisations. An examination of instances of these relations demonstrates that definite trends began to emerge in the orientation of Congress policy toward labour—a policy clearly marked by great concern for the welfare of exploited black workers. This concern Congress couched in national, not class, terms, but it underpinned this approach with some knowledge of labour conditions and sympathy for workers’ predicament.

In this period, the SANNC made very limited headway among most workers. Its bonds with black labour tended to be uneven, characterised by brief, shifting alliances. Yet these contacts were recurrent and some workers joined or interacted with Congress, which became aware of their difficult conditions. In theory, the inferior social status of African leaders vis-à-vis white people brought them common interests with black workers; they all faced discrimination. Residential near-proximity heightened this commonality. If there was just enough social mobility for educated Africans to rise above labourers in lifestyle, then political powerlessness and impediments to continued social mobility tended to keep many of this elite within the same broad social orbit as workers. Before black workers formed their own class organisations in the 1920s, they protested in political arenas, including Congress. This does not mean workers eschewed independent action—but they found allies necessary.