Zambia’s Copper Mines Hard-Baked Racism Into the Workplace By Labelling Whites ‘Expats’

Zambia’s Copperbelt has been a centre of the world copper industry for almost a century. When mining began on an industrial scale in the 1920s, the mines employed both migrant white and African workers. By the time of Zambia’s independence in 1964, around 7,500 white workers and 38,000 African workers were employed on the mines.

Although they worked alongside each other, white and African mineworkers did not do the same jobs. There was a clear racial division in the workplace during the colonial…