In 1874, African casual workers in Durban protested new regulations that limited their freedom and bargaining power. Many of them would have worked on the docks. Durban is a port city on South Africa's Indian Ocean coast, which would become South Africa's main harbor and a crucial node in the trade and communication networks of the Indian Ocean and the British Empire (see map I.1). When the city refused to annul these regulations, scores withdrew their labor and returned to their rural homesteads. This was the first documented strike by African workers in Durban, and, in the more than 140 years since 1874, dock workers have often taken the lead in labor activism in the city. A long history of repression, declining employment, and technological change has not fully stamped out this tradition of protest and activism, as illustrated by dockers’ 2008 refusal to unload weapons destined for Zimbabwe's Mugabe regime. The next year they boycotted an Israeli ship to protest apartheid Israel and the bombing of Gaza in Operation Cast Lead (2008–9).

Dock workers in South Africa's foremost port city have repeatedly proven themselves to be radical and strike prone, as dock workers have often been around the world. They engaged in strikes, refused to work overtime, rioted, and boycotted certain cargoes and ships; they also cut corners, dragged their feet, and refused to live where their employers and the government wanted them to live. In 1972–73, they were among the first to participate in the Durban strikes that, even before the 1976 Soweto uprising, reignited resistance to the apartheid regime after a decade of relatively successful repression—the so-called silent decade that followed the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.

These dock workers called themselves onyathi, which means “buffaloes” but is also used to refer to strong, forceful men. This self-designation alluded to their physical strength and the collective nature of their work. In the early 1940s, legendary dock leader Zulu Phungula proudly talked about a “strike called inyathi” and invoked the image of a steamship to refer to the strength and resolve of the striking workers— labelling them SS Inyathi, or Steamship Buffalo. As Africans under apartheid, these workers were banned from unionizing and denied many other political and industrial rights.