What can be learned from black South Africans who achieved success before democracy came to South Africa in 1994? What are the challenges they faced, and how did they overcome them? And what has South Africa’s democracy brought for black people?

These are the questions Phumlani M. Majozi explores and attempts to answer in Lessons from Past Heroes.

He traces black peoples’ economic and political activity back to the early 1900s. The men who convened in Bloemfontein for the establishment of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) in 1912, today called African National Congress (ANC), were successful men who had devoted their lives to advancing the interests of their communities. Phumlani explores the careers, challenges, and successes of men such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, John Langalibalele Dube, Sol Plaatje and Josiah Tshangana Gumede.

And during the apartheid years, South Africa produced black men and women who overcame the odds to succeed in their fields of business, science and politics. They succeeded in the face of an oppressive government system, which should inspire every South African living today. After exploring the history of South Africa, Phumlani delves into the present and the future; evaluating the challenges South Africans face and proposes solutions that can speed up their economic progress. He argues that much of South Africa’s history has portrayed blacks as victims of white oppression, and the inspirational stories of those people who overcame adversity are not being told widely enough. These stories must be told to inspire future generations. If black people could strive and become successful pre-1994, what stops a black person from succeeding in twenty-first century South Africa? The answer is nothing, Phumlani writes.