From the 1920s to the mid-1950s black politics in Kroonstad could generally be characterised as quiescent and tranquil. Unlike in other areas across the country, the majority of the residents in Kroonstad avoided engaging in confrontational and protest politics, except for a few intermittent occasions especially when the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) was in existence. I contend that this was largely caused by the restrained political approach adopted by the Kroonstad branch of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC – in 1923 the name was changed to the African National Congress). By 1920 this branch had ceased to function. Similarly, I argue that the dominance in local politics of the ‘moderate’ bodies such as the Native Advisory Board and the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives and later – for a very brief period at the beginning of the 1950s – the Orange Free State African Teachers Association (OFSATA) and the Society of Young Africa (SOYA) helped to maintain the status quo.

Although the branch of the SANNC in Kroonstad was already in existence by 1915, unlike other SANNC branches in the Orange Free State (in places such as Springfontein and Thaba ‘Nchu) it avoided rallying the residents to oppose the white authorities’ unpopular decisions which had negative effects on the lives of black people. This was evident, for example, when it failed to mobilise black residents to resist their removal from what is today Kroonstad town to the new areas where they were finally settled: the locations. It was hardly surprising, as at the time this was the line the national leadership of SANNC had adopted, petitioning the British Crown to intervene on behalf of the African people in South Africa after the promulgation of the Union of South Africa and the Land Acts of 1910 and 1913 respectively.

The political vacuum left by the SANNC in Kroonstad after it temporarily ceased to function and until the mid-1950s was occupied by the ICU. In the short period of its existence, the ICU made its presence felt in Kroonstad. It combined labour and community issues. On the farms it fought for the living wage and conducive working conditions for its members; in the locations it mobilised and sometimes supported the residents to resist rent hikes.