Smuts vs Xuma — Round 2
This is the second part of an edited extract from the chapter ‘Jan Smuts, Alfred Xuma and the Struggle for Racial Equality in South Africa, 1939-1948’, by Bongani Ngqulunga, from the book ‘Reappraising the Life and Legacy of Jan C Smuts’. The author highlights the friction between Smuts and Xuma, which provides insights into Smuts’s role in the ‘Native problem’
22 September 2024 - 00:00
Smuts had already outlined his government’s main approach to the so-called Native problem. In an address to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) delivered in January 1942 in Cape Town, he made a startling admission that the policy of segregating black and white South Africans, which was the bedrock of Hertzog’s Native Bills and his own, had failed dismally. ..
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