"A thorough examination of Alfred B. Xuma's life and times, Gish's study not only broadens our understanding of African nationalism at a crucial period, but also sheds light on white liberalism, Pan Africanism, and the world of the educated African elite."--BOOK JACKET.

Revered in South Africa as "An African American Mother of the Nation," Madie Beatrice Hall Xuma spent her extraordinary life immersed in global women's activism. Wanda A. Hendricks's biography follows Hall Xuma from her upbringing in the Jim Crow South to her leadership role in the African National Congress (ANC) and beyond. Hall Xuma was already known for her social welfare work when she married South African physician and ANC activist Alfred Bitini Xuma. Becoming president of the ANC Women’s League put Hall Xuma at the forefront of fighting racial discrimination as South Africa moved toward apartheid. Hendricks provides the long-overlooked context for the events that undergirded Hall Xuma’s life and work. As she shows, a confluence of history, ideas, and organizations both shaped Hall Xuma and centered her in the histories of Black women and women’s activism, and of South Africa and the United States.

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of World War 2, Africans displaced by colonial rule created an African-American myth - a myth which aggrandized the life and attainments of African Americans despite full knowledge of the discrimination to which they were subjected. The myth provided Africans in all parts of the continent with much needed succour and underpinned various religious, educational, political and social models based on the experience of African Americans whereby Africans sought to better their own lives.

This book compares African and Afrikaner nationalisms to demonstrate that the transition from apartheid to liberal democracy in South Africa was a neo-colonial settlement that left the economy and the military and security sectors under the control of the white minority, while increasing wide socioeconomic disparities between rich and poor.