Selected Writings

Ruth First born in 1925 held multiple roles during the struggles of her time as a communist militant journalist researcher and leading intellectual in South Africa. Until her assassination in 1982 she was a committed anti-apartheid activist and was one of the many defendants of the Treason Trial and imprisoned without charge in solitary confinement for 117 days in 1963. Ruth First on a range of topics including the landmark 1956 Women’s March the workings of the apartheid state and the history of anti-apartheid armed struggle against this state introduced by an essay on First’s life and legacy written by Vashna Jagarnath a labour activist who works in the office of the general secretary of the National Union of Metal workers of South Africa (NUMSA).