[2]: 44 He and the other journalists writing at the Drum were influenced by the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 and had to show the effects of Apartheid indirectly on black lives without condemning it directly for fear of being banned from practising journalism.
[2]: 50 In 1963, the Publications and Entertainment Act was passed, which allowed the South African government broad powers to ban or censor content it deemed unfavourable to the interest of the country, further hindering Nakasa's work, as he attempted to stay within the law.
[2]: 51 At the same time, Allister Sparks, editorial page editor of the white anti-apartheid newspaper The Rand Daily Mail, invited Nakasa to write a black perspective column for the paper.
[2]: 51 Unbeknown to Nakasa, the South African police had been monitoring him since 1959 and were about to issue him with a five-year banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act when he left for the United States in October 1964.
[4] While attending the Nieman Fellowship, he participated in protest meetings against Apartheid at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Washington DC, and unsuccessfully attempted again to write an article for The New York Times.
"[4] Nakasa seemed homesick, unable to return to South Africa, unsettled and drinking, he became depressed and confessed to his friend Nadine Gordimer that he was worried he had inherited his mother's mental illness.