Militant Migrants
Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951

Studies in Labour History, 21
Liverpool University Press
November 28, 2025

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Born in colonial Malawi, Clements Kadalie dramatically rose to global prominence as general secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU) during the 1920s. A famed orator, journalist and trade union organiser, Kadalie electrified huge meetings with his call for economic freedom and all-in mass organisation, eclipsing nationalist contemporaries and unionising anywhere between 100,000 and 250,000 workers throughout South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. A global labour history of Southern Africa from the perspective of the ICU’s immigrant leadership, Militant Migrants rehabilitates the significance of the early Malawian diaspora, the global importance of Kadalie’s ideas, the rationale behind the ICU’s transnational organising, and the many awkward difficulties that Kadalie faced in his personal life. Although the ICU dramatically collapsed during the early 1930s, Kadalie’s fall from grace encapsulates a broader turning-point in Southern African history, offering unique insights into ideas of gender, nation and family that he and other immigrants challenged. Leaving a complicated legacy of unprecedented successes and inescapable failures, Kadalie’s life remains a compelling and necessary tale – of audacity, solidarity, and militant mass struggle – not least of all because of the profound challenges that he faced.

Author information
Henry Dee is a Research Fellow at both Northumbria University and the International Studies Group, University of the Free State.