Margaret Legum

Margaret Jean Roberts Legum (8 October 1933, Pretoria, South Africa – 1 November 2007, Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African/British anti-apartheid activist and social reformer, who specialized in economics.

Known primarily for her globally influential 1963 book on the necessity of economic sanctions against South Africa, South Africa: Crisis for the West, which she wrote in partnership with her husband Colin, Legum had a long career as a key member of the Iona Community, the radical ecumenical movement based on the Scottish island of Iona.

Such was the impact of the couple's work that in 1962 she and Colin, who was regarded as Fleet Street's first African correspondent, were expelled from their homeland and were able to return only after the end of apartheid. Holding dual nationality, she settled in Great Britain and was soon in demand as a broadcaster, journalist and trainer for radical activists. Her husband had been recruited to The Observer by David Astor and became one of the most influential journalists in his field, drawing heavily on his wife's experiences and intellectual excellence.

She worked as a lecturer at the London School of Economics, as she had back at Rhodes University. She was the founder of the South African Centre for Anti-Racism and Sexism (CARAS) as well as the British agency PACE (Preparation for Adaptation to Changing Environments). Her first degree, in economics, was from Rhodes University, and to this she added another from Cambridge and a third from Rhodes. Margaret Legum's last book, It Doesn't Have To Be Like This, was published in 2002.

Widowed in 2003, Margaret Legum's latter days were spent in South Africa, where she campaigned tirelessly for a system of economic organisation that would reduce developing nations' dependence on world markets, writing, "I am outraged at our [South African] appalling poverty in the midst of unbelievable wealth and potential of plenty for everyone. It is based on our dependency on world economic factors over which we have no control".

Margaret Legum died in 2007, aged 74, from cancer, survived by her three daughters and grandchildren.

External links

• Obituary