‘Dingaan's Day’, 1929, and there is a protest march through the streets of Cape Town. Four-year-old Alex la Guma sits on the shoulders of trade unionist Dora Alexander clutching a black, green and gold flag. These are the colours of the African National Congress (ANC). Along with the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU) and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), it opposed Minister of Justice Oswald Pirow's proposed amendment to the Riotous Assemblies Act, which would restrict the already limited opportunities for public demonstration. This was his ‘first experience in the people's struggle’.

There can be no question that La Guma's father, James Arnold (Jimmy) la Guma was a remarkable man. One of the few coloured political and trade union figures from a working class background at that time, he influenced his son in many ways. La Guma recalled that his father ‘had a great deal to do with moulding my philosophical and political outlook and guiding me towards the reading of serious works, both political and literary’. Jimmy was certainly influential, but our opening vignette and his son's tribute beg the question of who or what else might have affected him.

‘Ambassadors of Garvey’

There is some uncertainty about Jimmy's early years, for La Guma and his sister Joan provide different accounts and stress different details. According to La Guma's accounts Jimmy's parents arrived in South Africa sometime in the nineteenth century, and he was born in 1894.