South Africa, 1919–49 Colin Legum was born on 3 January 1919 in the rural settlement of
Kestell in the
Orange Free State,
South Africa. His parents were
Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants who ran a small hotel. He was brought up by a
Sotho nurse and "felt deeply about the injustice of the treatment of the local black population" as well as the poverty among the local whites. Although strongly attached to South Africa, he was politically sympathetic to
Zionism. Legum was educated at Kestell's Retief High School. In 1934 immediately after finishing at age 15 he left for
Johannesburg, finding a job as an office boy at the
Sunday Express, where was its political reporter, by the time he was 19 He joined the
South African Labour Party and became the editor of its newspapers
Forward and
The Mineworker, eventually becoming party general secretary. He was elected to
Johannesburg City Council in 1942 where he was responsible for housing. He married Eugenie ( Leon) in 1941.
United Kingdom and the Observer, 1949–91 '', established by Legum in 1968 Legum left South Africa for the
United Kingdom in 1949 as the newly ascendant
National Party of
F. S. Malan began to construct the
Apartheid system of racial segregation. In
London Legum gained a prestigious post at
The Observer through personal contact with
David Astor, its editor, who, like Legum, opposed South African policy. Legum became one of the first British journalists specifically focusing on African issues and remained with
The Observer for most of his career, eventually becoming the paper's associate editor. As a journalist, Legum remained involved in South African political issues. He became part of the Africa Bureau run by
Michael Scott and
Mary Benson, which campaigned for reform in South Africa. Along with Scott and other activists, he co-authored his first book,
Attitude to Africa, in 1952. He subsequently wrote numerous popular works on contemporary African subjects during the era of
decolonisation, including
Congo Disaster (1961) and
Pan-Africanism: A Brief History (1962). He became friends with several leading
African nationalist leaders, notably
Julius Nyerere,
Seretse Khama, and
Oliver Tambo. Legum married the economist
Margaret Legum ( Roberts) in 1960 after the death of his first wife. They co-authored
South Africa: Crisis for the West (1964), which was the first call for economic sanctions against Apartheid South Africa. He was banned from South Africa in 1962 and later from
Rhodesia. He established the annual
Africa Contemporary Record in 1968. His last book was
Africa Since Independence (1991).
South Africa, 1996–2003 With the collapse of the
Apartheid state, Legum returned to South Africa in 1996 and settled in
Kalk Bay, near
Cape Town. He received honorary degrees from
Rhodes University and the
University of South Africa. In 2002 he founded the Dr Colin Legum Development Trust to provide scholarships at Retief High School. He died on 8 June 2003, aged 84. ==References==