African security force personnel were a fairly prominent group within colonial Southern Rhodesia. While their role in building what are now the national institutions of contemporary Zimbabwe might usually be seen as restricted to law enforcement and defense, colonial African police and soldiers also contributed to the development of print journalism, professional sports, education, religion, entertainment, business, and other fields. Their classification as colonial collaborators or “sell-outs” during the African nationalist struggle of the 1960s and 1970s, however, means that they have been largely ignored by historians and generally forgotten.

In the early twentieth century slightly more than half of Southern Rhodesia's police were Africans, with many having come to the territory as migrant workers from Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. African men joined the police mostly to earn a wage within the growing capitalist economy, though other motivations were important as well, such as the prestige of wearing a uniform that conferred limited authority over other Africans. From its inception, the BSAP was a racially hierarchical and segregated organization in which whites were superior to blacks and the latter experienced inferior conditions of service, such as unequal pay and accommodations. The double standards of the time meant that European police could arrest Africans but African police could not arrest Europeans. In this early period African police duties were simple, and African personnel mainly assisted European police as servants, grooms, guards, and intermediaries with African civilians.