Showing early promise as a writer, he submitted various samples of his work to publications and as a result was offered a job by the Post newspaper in Johannesburg, which had published some of his earlier contributions.
Most black-focused publications were controlled by white business interests and none of them offered scope for the kind of investigative exposés that Nxumalo had in mind.
He obtained employment on the potato farms so as to expose the squalid conditions (almost slave-like) experienced by Black labourers.
Worried about the lawlessness in Johannesburg "the square mile of sin", he agitated for clean-up and appealed for support from the police.
Nxumalo was posthumously honoured with the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for excellence in South African journalism.