The People’s Paper , livre ebook

WITS University Press - Robert Trent Vinson , Chris Saunders , Jeff Opland , Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu , Sarah Mkhonza , Christopher Lowe , Peter Limb , Paul Landau , Grant Christison

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427 pages

English

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This much-awaited volume uncovers the long-lost pages of the major African multilingual newspaper, Abantu-Batho. Founded in 1912 by African National Congress (ANC) convenor Pixley Seme, with assistance from the Swazi Queen, it was published up until 1931, attracting the cream of African politicians, journalists and poets Mqhayi, Nontsisi Mgqweth, and Grendon. In its pages burning issues of the day were articulated alongside cultural by-ways. The People’s Paper – comprising both essays and an anthology – explores the complex movements and individuals that emerged in the almost twenty years of its publication. The essays contribute rich, new material to provide clearer insights into South African politics and intellectual life. The anthology unveils a judicious selection of never-before published columns from the paper spanning every year of its life and drawn from repositories on three continents. Abantu-Batho had a regional and international focus, and by examining all these dynamics across boundaries and disciplines, The People’s Paper transcends established historiographical frontiers to fill a lacuna that scholars have long lamented.
Introduction: A Centenary History of Abantu-Batho, the People’s Paper
Peter Limb
Chapter 1 ‘Only the Bolder Spirits’: Politics, Racism, Solidarity and War in Abantu-Batho
Peter Limb
Chapter 2 ‘They Must Go to the Bantu Batho’: Economics and Education, Religion and Gender, Love and Leisure in the People’s Paper
Peter Limb
Chapter 3 Pixley Seme and Abantu-Batho
Chris Saunders
Chapter 4 Queen Labotsibeni and Abantu-Batho
Sarah Mkhonza
Chapter 5 ‘We of Abantu Batho’: Robert Grendon’s Brief and Controversial Editorship
Grant Christison
Chapter 6 The Swazi Royalty and the Founding of Abantu-Batho in a Regional Context 174
Chris Lowe
Chapter 7 Abantu-Batho and the Xhosa Poets 201
Jeff Opland
Chapter 8 African Royalty, Popular History and Abantu-Batho
Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu and Peter Limb
Chapter 9 ‘Johannesburg in Flames’: The 1918 Shilling Campaign,
Abantu-Batho and Early African Nationalism in South Africa
Paul Landau
Chapter 10 Garveyism, Abantu-Batho and the Radicalisation of the African National Congress during the 1920s
Robert Trent Vinson
Chapter 11 An African Newspaper in Central Johannesburg: The Journalistic and Associational Context of Abantu-Batho
Peter Limb
Conclusion Assessing the Decline and Legacy of Abantu-Batho
Peter Limb

Sujets

Media Studies

Social Science

HISTORY

Sociologie, société et politique

África

General officer

History of Africa

General

Africa

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Publié par	WITS University Press
Date de parution	01 septembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781868148509
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1750€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Contents Contributors vii Acknowledgements ix Preface Les Switzer x List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xiv List of Illustrations xv PART I : Essays 1 OVERVIEW 1 Introduction: A Centenary History of Abantu-Batho, the People s Paper PETER LIMB 2 CHAPTER 1 Only the Bolder Spirits : Politics, Racism, Solidarity and War in Abantu-Batho PETER LIMB 49 CHAPTER 2 They Must Go to the Bantu Batho : Economics and Education, Religion and Gender, Love and Leisure in the People s Paper PETER LIMB 81 FOUNDERS AND EDITORS 116 CHAPTER 3 Pixley Seme and Abantu-Batho CHRIS SAUNDERS 117 CHAPTER 4 Queen Labotsibeni and Abantu-Batho SARAH MKHONZA 128 CHAPTER 5 We of Abantu Batho : Robert Grendon s Brief and Controversial Editorship GRANT CHRISTISON 151 THEMES AND CONNECTIONS 173 CHAPTER 6 The Swazi Royalty and the Founding of Abantu-Batho in a Regional Context CHRIS LOWE 174 CHAPTER 7 Abantu-Batho and the Xhosa Poets JEFF OPLAND 201 CHAPTER 8 African Royalty, Popular History and Abantu-Batho SIFISO MXOLISI NDLOVU AND PETER LIMB 226 CHAPTER 9 Johannesburg in Flames : The 1918 Shilling Campaign, Abantu-Batho and Early African Nationalism in South Africa PAUL LANDAU 255 CHAPTER 10 Garveyism, Abantu-Batho and the Radicalisation of the African National Congress during the 1920s ROBERT VINSON 282 CHAPTER 11 An African Newspaper in Central Johannesburg: The Journalistic and Associational Context of Abantu-Batho PETER LIMB 298 Conclusion Assessing the Decline and Legacy of Abantu-Batho PETER LIMB 318 PART II: Anthology 331 Bibliography 491 Appendix Abantu-Batho Editors and Editorial Staff 511 Index 513
The People s Paper
A Centenary History Anthology of Abantu-Batho
EDITED BY PETER LIMB
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg
www.witspress.co.za
Published edition Wits University Press 2012
Compilation Edition editor 2012
Chapters Individual contributors 2012
First published 2012
ISBN 978-1-86814-571-3 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-86814-850-9 (Digital)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Cover images: Abantu-Batho print works and staff, ca. 1920, courtesy Wits Historical
Papers A2945 E
Edited by Alex Potter
Cover design by Hothouse South Africa
Typesetting by Pamset
Printed and bound by Paarl Media
Contributors
GRANT CHRISTISON S 2007 University of KwaZulu-Natal PhD was on Robert Grendon, an Abantu-Batho editor, on whom he has also published a chapter in Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism 1840-1930 ( Brill, 2010 ). He is currently preparing an edition of Robert Grendon s epic poem Paul Kruger s Dream and has recently published on reading practices in colonial Natal in English in Africa .
PAUL LANDAU is an associate professor of History at the University of Maryland and a research fellow at the University of Johannesburg. He is the author of Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948 ( Cambridge University Press, 2010 ) and The Realm of the Word: Language, Gender and Christianity in a Southern African Kingdom (David Philip, 1995).
PETER LIMB is an adjunct associate professor and Africana bibliographer at Michigan State University. His recent books include A. B. Xuma s Autobiography and Selected Works ( VRS, 2012 ), The ANC s Early Years ( Unisa Press, 2010 ), Grappling with the Beast ( Brill, 2010 ) and Nelson Mandela: A Biography (Greenwood, 2008).
CHRISTOPHER LOWE is the only scholar to have written a PhD ( Yale University, 1998 ) dealing substantially with the history of Abantu-Batho . He has published on Zulu and Swazi political history and ethnic politics, including in the Radical History Review .
SARAH MKHONZA is African writer-in-residence at Cornell University. She edited Democracy, Transformation, Conflict and Public Policy in Swaziland and, with Ackson Kanduza, Issues in the Economy and Politics of Swaziland since 1968 ( OSSREA, 2003 ) and has published five literary works. She is writing an historical novel on Swazi queens.
SIFISO MXOLISI NDLOVU is executive director of SADET. He has a PhD in History from the University of the Witwatersrand and is author of The Soweto Uprisings: Counter-memories of June 1976 ( Ravan Press, 1998 ), and several chapters in the SADET series, as well as school history textbooks. His research includes pre-colonial history and the history of football, on which he has published in such journals as the South African Historical Journal and History and Theory.
JEFF OPLAND , visiting professor of African Language Literatures in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and visiting professor in the School of Languages, Rhodes University, is an acclaimed scholar specialising in Xhosa literature. His recent works include The Nation s Bounty: The Xhosa Poetry of Nontsizi Mgqwetho ( Wits University Press, 2007 ) and editions and translations of the work of Isaac Williams Wauchope ( Van Riebeeck Society, 2008 ) and S. E. K. Mqhayi s historical and biographical writings ( Wits University Press, 2009 ).
CHRIS SAUNDERS is an emeritus professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town. He has published on many aspects of Southern African history. His many books include The Making of the South African Past (1988) and (with T. R. H. Davenport), South Africa: A Modern History (2000; new edition forthcoming). He is one of the few to have written on the founder of Abantu-Batho , in an article in the South African Historical Journal (1991).
ROBERT TRENT VINSON is a university associate professor for Teaching Excellence in History at the College of William and Mary. His recent books include The Americans Are Coming! Dreams of African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa ( Ohio University Press, 2012 ), Crossing the Water: African Americans and South Africa, 1890-1965 , with Robert Edgar and David Anthony (forthcoming, Ohio University Press) and Shaka s Progeny: Zulu Culture and the Making of the Modern Atlantic World with Benedict Carton.
Acknowledgements
A book as complex as this has required the assistance of many people. For translations, extracts, or comments, I wish to thank Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi, Sekepe Matjila, Chris Lowe, Grant Christison, Brian Willan, Jeff Opland, Pamela Maseko, Sarah Mkhonza, Sifiso Ndlovu, Betty Sibongile Dlamini, Heather Hughes, Paul Landau, Robert Trent Vinson, Chris Saunders, Dag Henrichsen, Diana Jeater, Mwelela Cele, Paul la Hausse de Lalouvi re, Robert Edgar, Robert Hill, Jeff Peires, Ray Suttner, Andr Odendaal and John Lonsdale. The perceptive and helpful remarks of three anonymous reviewers added still further to the text. Always vital in digging out fragments of this lost newspaper was the help of archivists and librarians at: the National Archives of South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe; Campbell Collections of the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Wits Historical Papers (especially Michele Pickover); Pitts Theological Library at Emory University; Rhodes House, Oxford; and the School of Oriental and African Studies Libraries. Chris Lowe was a real sleuth on photographic identification. Some material from Robert Trent Vinson s chapter appeared in The Americans Are Coming! Dreams of African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa ( Ohio University Press, 2012 ), and some sections of Peter Limb s chapter 2 appeared in The ANC s Early Years ( Unisa Press, 2010 ), included with permission from those two presses.
The deeper origins of this book go back to scholarly communications between Les Switzer, Chris Lowe and myself at a time when the Internet was young, and to more recent urgings by Paul la Hausse de Lalouvi re; and of course to the inspiration and stimulation over many decades of the national liberation struggle in South Africa.
Preface
For much of the period before the end of the apartheid era the history of the South African press was the history of the white commercial press - the newspapers, magazines, and newsletters that were owned and controlled, produced, and consumed largely on behalf of those who ruled. And yet beneath the surface of this mainstream media lay hundreds of publications that sought to represent the anxieties and fears, interests and needs, hopes and desires of those who had no voice in white South Africa - the Africans, Coloureds and Indians who made up the vast majority of South Africa s population.
The first publications in African languages - produced by missionaries working in communities of Bantu-speaking Africans in the Northern and Eastern Cape - stem from 1836 or 1837. 1 This was only 12 or 13 years after the first newspaper owned by a white colonist was published. 2 For most of the period between the late 1830s and the early 1990s, however, the black non-commercial press, 3 like the white commercial press, was a sectional press. Black publications were aimed at or intended for separate African, Coloured and Indian communities, just as the European community was the primary consumer of the mainstream white press.
The archive of periodicals representing these subaltern communities - arguably the oldest and largest in sub-Saharan Africa - was virtually unknown before the 1960s/70s, when a few scholars began to interview ordinary Africans who were not necessarily prominent politically, but had been active as church leaders, educators, journalists, literary authors, and businessmen and -women. These scholars were not so much interested in the publications where their African informants had expressed their views, but inevitably this entered into the conversation.
I shall never forget one of my first interviews, which was in 1964 with Gideon Sivetye at h