A chairman of the Orlando African National Congress (ANC) during the 1952 Defiance Campaign and elected to the ANC national executive committee in December 1952. He was expelled from the ANC in 1954 for allegedly organising a dissident left-wing faction called the "Bafebagiya" group. He later became president of the Swaziland National Union of South Africa and deputy-president of the Swaziland Progressive Party, in which capacity he commuted regularly between Johannesburg and Swaziland. A former member of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), he was banned from attending gatherings and in November 1962 was placed under 24-hour house arrest. He subsequently left South Africa for Swaziland.