Federation of Non-European Trade Unions

The Communist Party USA, ideologically committed to foster a socialist revolution in the United States, played a significant role in defending the civil rights of African Americans during its most influential years of the 1930s and 1940s. In that period, the African-American population was still concentrated in the South, where it was largely disenfranchised, excluded from the political system, and oppressed under Jim Crow laws.

Anarchism in South Africa dates to the 1880s, and played a major role in the labour and socialist movements from the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1920s. The early South African anarchist movement was strongly syndicalist. The ascendance of Marxism–Leninism following the Russian Revolution, along with state repression, resulted in most of the movement going over to the Comintern line, with the remainder consigned to irrelevance. There were slight traces of anarchist or revolutionary syndicalist influence in some of the independent left-wing groups which resisted the apartheid government from the 1970s onward, but anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism as a distinct movement only began re-emerging in South Africa in the early 1990s. It remains a minority current in South African politics.

International Libertarian Solidarity was an international anarchist network with over 20 participating organizations from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The South African Labour Party, was a South African political party formed in March 1910 in the newly created Union of South Africa following discussions between trade unions and the Independent Labour Party of Transvaal, was a professedly democratic socialist party representing the interests of the white working class.

Trade unions in South Africa have a history dating back to the 1880s. From the beginning unions could be viewed as a reflection of the racial disunity of the country, with the earliest unions being predominantly for white workers. Through the turbulent years of 1948–1991 trade unions played an important part in developing political and economic resistance, and eventually were one of the driving forces in realising the transition to an inclusive democratic government.

The South African Railways and Harbours Union was formed by black workers of the South African Railways and Harbours Administration after they had been expelled from the National Union of Railway and Harbour Servants.

The Council of Non-European Trade Unions in South Africa was established in November 1941.

The South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was a national trade union federation in South Africa.

Albert Nzula was a South African politician and activist. Nzula was the first black secretary general of the Communist Party of South Africa.

The Industrial Workers of the World or IWW (SA) had a brief but notable history in the 1910s-20s, and is particularly noted for its influence on the syndicalist movement in southern Africa through its promotion of the IWW's principles of industrial unionism, solidarity, and direct action, as well as its role in the creation of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of Africa and the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union.

The African Laundry Workers' Union was a trade union representing cleaning workers in South Africa.

The African Clothing Workers' Union (ACWU) was a trade union representing workers in the garment industry South Africa.