Читать книгу The People’s Paper - Christopher Lowe - Страница 14

There are many incompletely answered questions on editorial matters. Who were the editors and over which periods? How did they share responsibility? Was there a coordinating editor? How did they interact with correspondents and the public? What role did they play in politics? Was their remuneration so modest that most were ‘editor-journalists’?

Abantu-Batho had diverse staff. In 1914 the editor of Tsala ea Batho, Plaatje, commenting on a caustic attack by Abantu-Batho on white missions, explained, ‘Abantu-Batho enjoys the unique privilege of being financed by a black capitalist. Consequently it can afford some luxuries’ such as ‘a staff of some half a dozen sub-editors.’ Hence at times it might carry the ‘occasional inconsequential scratching of a journalistic booby even though he happens to be attached to the editorial staff’.¹²⁹ Such editorial diversity was not the case on all black papers. Abantu-Batho pointed to the one-man band of Jabavu’s Imvo: ‘Mr. Jabavu’s party – if at all he has any – and the people en masse often spoken of by him, are the Editor, his pen, ink and paper, but surely not his staff.’¹³⁰

The ideas of editors emerge in the chapters that follow. In the Appendix we list them as best we know; here I summarise their roles. The first managing editor, from 1912 until probably 1916, was Pixley ka Isaka Seme (1881–1951), who chaired the initial board of directors.¹³¹ He had no known prior press experience, but may have served briefly as editor in 1916 and/or 1918. The editorial staff comprised the various language editors and sometimes a coordinating editor. A 1914 letterhead of the paper lists C. Kunene and D. S. Letanka as editors.¹³² Cleopas Kunene (1866–1917) was inaugural editor in English and isiZulu from October 1912 to December 1915, and perhaps again from July 1916 until his death in 1917. Daniel Simon Letanka (1874–1932) was Sesotho/Setswana editor for the paper’s lifespan, a director, and succeeded Seme as managing editor. Saul Msane (1856–1919) was editor from January to July 1916;¹³³ Robert Grendon (1867–1949) from late 1915 to July 1916. The acting Director of Native Labour stated categorically in 1916 that there were then ‘three joint Editors’: ‘Robert Grendon a coloured man who deals with the English portions, Saul Msane responsible for Zulu and Daniel Letanka who deals with the Sesuto portion.’¹³⁴ Levi Thomas Mvabaza (1870s–1947) was editor and managing director for the period 1916–31 in charge of isiXhosa columns.¹³⁵ Jeremiah Dunjwa (d. 1935) joined the staff in 1913 and became isiXhosa editor. T. D. (Trevor Dan) Mweli Skota (1893–1976) served as organiser/sub-editor in 1912, returning as editor in 1927. Sub-editors or writers included Msane’s son, Herbert, Horatio Bud-M’belle and Richard Victor Selope Thema (1886–1955) from about 1916 until at least mid-1920.¹³⁶ During his 1930–33 banishment from Natal, A. W. G. Champion (1893–1975) was an editor from 1930 to 1931. Selby Msimang (1886–1982) was the paper’s ‘Special Commissioner’¹³⁷ in 1913 and may have continued in some capacity until 1918. Cleopas Solomon Mabaso (d. 1935) was the long-serving secretary of Abantu-Batho Ltd, while Josiah Tshangana Gumede (1867–1947) was owner from 1929 until the end in 1931.

A closer examination of the staff provides insights into the nature of the paper. Seme is credited with the idea of a national paper tied to Congress. Thema, who came to work on the paper a few years after its founding, later wrote, ‘[n]o sooner was the Congress established than Pixley Seme conceived the idea of establishing a newspaper which could be used as a mouthpiece of the national organisation’. Through Seme’s ‘enthusiasm and indefatigable energy’ he effected successful mergers and formed a viable company for Abantu-Batho.¹³⁸ His story is told in chapter 3 by Chris Saunders.

As founder and managing editor, Seme was responsible for appointing editors and raising funds. I estimate his role was most effective between 1912 and 1916. In a 1924 interview he recalled that he appointed Cleopas Kunene, whom he knew well, as editor and later ‘sold the paper to a syndicate or company’, although he does not give a date.¹³⁹ Seme’s direct editorial role is unclear. One instance is an article in January 1916 satirical of the British war effort, suggesting that if Africans were ever called to arms they might well fight under the Zulu king.¹⁴⁰ Earlier, the Director of Native Labour had warned Seme of legal action if he failed to observe wartime regulations, claiming Abantu-Batho had contravened regulations prohibiting publication of items from a ‘hostile press’.¹⁴¹ In 1916 officials claimed that he was liable for prosecution. Duly interviewed, Seme admitted writing the article and received a ‘severe caution’.¹⁴² This was a difficult time for him. He suffered losses in land transactions, while a legal case forced him to sell possessions such as a typewriter and galvanised iron buildings from his home in Sophiatown, where the paper’s press also was located,¹⁴³ likely impacting its solvency and inclining him to become less involved. The radicalism of 1918–20 would have repelled him, but by then he was distancing himself and may have sold his shares to Mvabaza in 1916.¹⁴⁴ As detailed below, Seme later established his own paper to undermine Abantu-Batho.

Cleopas Kunene was inaugural editor from 1912 to late 1915.¹⁴⁵ He ‘ran the paper with considerable success’. Its letterhead gives him and Letanka as the editors and Mabaso as general agent.¹⁴⁶ Of Swazi background and with roots in Edendale, he had served as interpreter for the 1894 Swazi delegation to Britain,¹⁴⁷ worked as a teacher and as editor of Ipepa lo Hlanga and was prominent in Congress.¹⁴⁸ Kunene edited the English and isiZulu pages until early 1916, when apparently he was reproved either for sticking too much to English, as gossip had it,¹⁴⁹ or as Christison suggests, for financial reasons no doubt exacerbated by Seme’s pecuniary losses.¹⁵⁰ After Msane and Grendon were removed, Kunene resumed the editor’s chair for a final stint before his death in 1917.¹⁵¹ Natal teacher Josiah Mapumulo remarked on his ‘vigorous, trenchant style’ and that ‘his untimely death closes an interesting chapter in the history of Native journalism’.¹⁵²

Sesotho editor Daniel Simon Letanka was the longest-serving editor. He had roots in the Rustenburg area and probably ties with local chiefs, remaining close to the Upper House and serving as secretary of the ANC Council of Chiefs in the 1920s (see chapter 8 in this volume). He was a SANNC vice-president.¹⁵³ His main political activity, however, was in the TNC. In 1913 he was vice-chairman, a position he still held in 1921.¹⁵⁴ Skota describes him as the TNC’s ‘moving spirit’. He expressed consistently radical views. In April 1916 he spoke at Johannesburg Trades Hall on ‘Trade unions and the native question’, when he ‘humorously referred to the missionary fraud. They had told them to fear God and live in peace, but behind them came the troops.’¹⁵⁵ Gaoled in the 1918 strikes, he died in 1932 ‘penniless … after years of supporting himself on his small income’ from Abantu-Batho. Skota claims that Letanka ‘never received nor demanded compensation’ for his work and there was ‘not a candle in his house’ when he died. His long-term role on the paper lent its editorialising a more consistent radicalism that defended labour rights.¹⁵⁶ No doubt kept on the boil by poverty and a fighting editorial style, his radicalism did not endear him to authorities. In 1918, by which time the government regarded him as chief editor, Director of Native Labour H. E. Cooke thought Letanka ‘a decent respectable sort of man’, but ‘very easily influenced and even amongst Natives has the reputation of being weak’.¹⁵⁷ Secretary for Native Affairs Edward Dower told Cooke that Letanka was ‘a somewhat bitter, stupid person and difficult to pin down to facts’ and wanted him reprimanded for an article critical of Smuts.¹⁵⁸ Unlike journalists who followed a cautious line towards officialdom, Letanka embodied what Pilger, referring to investigative journalists in general, terms a healthy ‘disrespect for authoritarianism’.¹⁵⁹

Yet Letanka had another side. A musician and organiser of choirs,¹⁶⁰ he put these skills to good use to raise funds for Abantu-Batho. He does not seem to have attained a high educational standard and this may account for a decline in the paper’s grammar in its final years when he was at the helm.¹⁶¹ Like Kunene, he was a newspaper man. In 1910 he had started a weekly, Motsoalle (Friend, from 1911 Moromioa (Messenger)). Skota, who appeared briefly on the editorial floor soon after, describes how in 1912 his paper

was amalgamated with the well-advertised and thoroughly organized Bantu-Batho …. In this new company, Letanka became a director and one of its four editors, which position he held until his death, in 1934. Letanka took a great interest in the welfare of the Africans. He participated in the politics of the day.¹⁶²

If Cooke thought him weak, others thought that his resolve was firm. As Albert Grundlingh notes, Letanka responded without naivety to the declaration of the great powers in favour of the self-determination of small and oppressed nations. It was ‘a message of hope that the dawn of freedom is at last breaking forth’, but ‘if this doctrine is not applicable to the native inhabitants’, then ‘the case [for colonial rule] … falls to the ground’.¹⁶³

After a poverty-stricken childhood in Pietersburg (Polokwane), Thema went on to Lovedale and came to the Rand in 1915, where he worked for lawyer and Congress leader Richard Msimang. Herbert Msane introduced him to the Bantu Debating Union and probably Abantu-Batho. By 1916, with Plaatje absent in England, he was TNC assistant general secretary, also serving as general secretary of the SANNC Transvaal branch and the SANNC. In 1919, as general secretary, he signed the TNC constitution that stipulated Abantu-Batho as the TNC’s ‘official organ’.¹⁶⁴ At ANC head office Thema met the editors of Abantu-Batho. In 1915 he wrote in its pages on the iniquitous pass laws. By 1918 state officials thought that he was ‘Acting Editor in Zulu and English in the absence of Msimanga’.¹⁶⁵ In his unpublished autobiography he emphasises the role of Abantu-Batho in his politicisation and journalism career: it ‘helped me in my journalistic endeavour and made it possible for me to express my views on questions that affected the African’. If in 1918 the government thought him ‘none too reliable’ as an editor, this was due to his self-confessed radicalism. Writing in 1935, he recalled that at the time he was ‘a radical writer who called a spade a spade’; Abantu-Batho must have fuelled his radical views. In 1915 the ‘message of unity which came out week by week in the columns of the “Abantu-Batho” carried with it the vision of a “Promised Land” and thus sent a thrill of hope throughout Bantudom’.¹⁶⁶ Thema’s obituary, printed in the paper he had edited for white owners for 20 years, notes that he soon realised that ‘not only the platform but the Press of the Abantu-Batho newspaper which was the chief African paper during World War I’ was the way forward.¹⁶⁷ Upon taking a course on journalism while in London as part of the SANNC delegation in 1919, he seems briefly to have been a sub-editor of Abantu-Batho on his return in early 1920.¹⁶⁸ This explains articles under his pen in the special magazine format of the paper in February–March 1920 (see Part II). After this he abandoned his radicalism for the moderate liberalism of the Joint Councils, won over in 1921 by the Christian apolitical message of J. E. K. Aggrey, who urged cooperation with whites, ironically in the very African Club that had hosted many an Abantu-Batho function (see chapter 11 in this volume). Letanka, Mabaso and Mvabaza at first followed him into the Joint Councils, but withdrew and attacked them in Abantu-Batho; burnt into his memory was Letanka’s attack that forced his resignation as Transvaal Congress secretary. He castigates the editors for hailing ‘hothead’ leader of the ICU Samuel Masabalala as a hero and failing to denounce rioting Lovedale students.¹⁶⁹

It is possible, but unlikely that Thema returned to Abantu-Batho after this spat. Rodney Davenport cites him (without provenance) as an editor in 1923, writing, ‘we have a share and a claim to this country. Not only is it the land of our ancestors, but we have contributed to the progress and advancement of this country.’¹⁷⁰ A 1921 letterhead shows him still TNC general secretary, alongside Letanka, hence it would have been natural for Thema still to be writing in at least some columns in its organ, even if he opposed more radical editors.¹⁷¹ It is possible he continued to write for Abantu-Batho as he transitioned to a more moderate journalistic home with Umteteli, then as editor for Bantu World.

Saul Msane was involved with Mvabaza’s Umlomo wa Bantu and may have been elected Abantu-Batho editor at the February 1914 SANNC conference, although there is no evidence of such a role before late January 1916. His editorship was short, lasting only until July, when he and Grendon were expelled.¹⁷² By 1914 he had resigned his previous position as a compound manager to work as SANNC organiser and then sailed to London in June with the Congress delegation, to return on 8 October. Intense rivalry manifested in claim and counter-claim about the use of Congress monies saw him involved in unseating Dube as SANNC president and becoming S. M. Makgatho’s general secretary; Walshe points to the involvement of an Abantu-Batho group with Congress Transvalers to defeat Dube.¹⁷³ Msane’s editorship was stormy. His attendance with Grendon at a meeting sponsored by the radical International Socialist League (ISL) may have led Seme, who in 1916 wrote vituperatively of them, to sack them both. This was ironic, for in June 1918 Msane fiercely condemned black strikers and their ISL, TNC and Abantu-Batho supporters, leading to his vilification in its columns (see Part II). It is tempting to put this down to radicals, yet there was widespread opposition to his perceived dalliance with the state at a time of revulsion with the cruel sentences handed down to strikers, while criticism of Msane extended to moderates like R. W. Msimang, who commented: ‘Some of our educated natives are a danger to their people in that they go and arrange with white people without first consulting other natives.’¹⁷⁴ For its part, the mainstream white press such as the Sunday Times attacked Abantu-Batho’s criticism of Msane as typical of the ‘contempt which some natives have for those who run in opposition to their views’:

‘Nango U Mr. S. Msane (There he is! Mr S. M’Sane). The leading article in the paper is headed ‘U M’Sane Akafunoki [?] (He is not wanted). The article contained an attack on Msane of a nature which is being brought to the attention of the authorities.¹⁷⁵

Abantu-Batho was not cowed. The following week it reported that speakers at a mass meeting in Vrededorp were warned ‘not to be disturbed by what was in the white press by Mr Saul Msane’.¹⁷⁶ In 1919 Msane was clearly involved in moves to get Chamber of Mines support to outflank Abantu-Batho. Yet after his death later that year all was forgiven. Abantu-Batho acclaimed him as a ‘courageous and doughty leader’ who ‘always commanded … respect for the civilised blackman’. It added that ‘[h]is death was a shocking loss, particularly in the Transvaal it has been keenly felt’.¹⁷⁷

The poet Robert Grendon had a short, but eloquent stint as editor. As Christison notes in his chapter in this volume, he had considerable experience: as a printer for Inkanyiso, editing an ephemeral paper in Uitenhage and serving on Ilanga. In 1977 Couzens interviewed Selby Msimang, who recalled he had met Grendon in Johannesburg, where the latter ‘was round about the newspaper Abantu-Batho’, and that he spoke very good isiZulu and siSwati. The year before, Couzens had interviewed Skota, who remembered that Seme ‘got hold of’ Grendon ‘somehow, and brought him along to edit the first edition of the Abantu Batho’.¹⁷⁸ This timing is unlikely, for Kunene clearly was the first editor: Skota’s memory was not always reliable. Christison, Grendon’s biographer, argues that his stint was more likely to have been from late 1915 to mid-1916. By 1915 Kunene and Grendon had become ‘fierce enemies and rivals – both for the editorship of Abantu-Batho newspaper and for access to the Swazi royal circle’. With their close Edendale and Swaziland ties, both contributed substantially to the Swazi content of Abantu-Batho, but Grendon added the poetic touch, including his own poems.¹⁷⁹

In early 1916 officials reported ‘three joint Editors’, including ‘Robert Grendon a coloured man who deals with the English portions’. At this time Grendon is also reported as ‘responsible editor’, suggesting editor-in-chief.¹⁸⁰ But in July Ilanga was shocked to report that Grendon and Msane ‘have been removed from editing Abantu-Batho. We have also heard that Mr Kunene is to be reappointed to edit that paper.’¹⁸¹ As noted above, the action may have stemmed from their attendance at a public meeting called under the auspices of the ISL. Grendon then went back to Swaziland and into obscurity.

Levi Thomas Mvabaza from Peddie moved to Johannesburg, where in 1910 he and Saul Msane established the English/isiXhosa/Sesotho weekly Umlomo wa Bantu, based at 10 Kruis Street.¹⁸² He handled the isiXhosa, while L. A. Ramosime edited the Sesotho. Its policy, according to Skota, was ‘the unifying of all African tribes into one people, and to improve and expedite the education of the African children’. Mvabaza attended executive committee meetings of the South African Native Convention, a body representative of black political views that led to the SANNC’s birth, which discussed the formation of a national paper. Seme then

invited the Mvabaza group to amalgamate with this new company. The Mvabaza Company gladly accepted since the policy of this new paper known as Abantu-Batho was almost identical with its own. It was not long before Mvabaza was appointed managing director of the Abantu-Batho.¹⁸³

It seems more likely this merger did not occur until 1916, when Ilanga reported that ‘Mr Letanka will preside over the entire paper’.¹⁸⁴ Mvabaza, like Letanka and Mabaso, was prominent in the TNC and was radicalised in 1918–20. In 1919 he was a SANNC delegate to Britain, often introduced – as to a somewhat sympathetic Prime Minister Lloyd George – as managing director, Abantu-Batho, Ltd,¹⁸⁵ probably assuming this role from Seme around 1917. He was co-editor from 1916, but we know little of his journalistic role in the 1920s.

According to Skota, Seme brought Cleopas Mabaso, a qualified bookkeeper and teacher with roots in Edendale, to Johannesburg from Christiana in 1912 to be secretary-bookkeeper and general agent of Abantu-Batho Ltd. He did much of the correspondence and lobbying. He served on TNC and ANC executives and was national vice-president in 1926 and financial secretary in 1930; La Hausse de Lalouvière sees him as ‘a key political broker on the Rand’. With strong Swazi links, Mabaso lobbied the queen regent for continued support of the paper. He shared generational influences with Letanka and Mvabaza, and together they were active in protests and stayed true to Abantu-Batho until the bitter end.¹⁸⁶

Herbert Nuttall Vuma Msane, son of Saul, was an editor or sub-editor in 1917 and possibly into the early 1920s. Educated at Lovedale in 1904–07, he sang as a tenor with his parents in 1908,¹⁸⁷ but by 1912 was active, like his father, in Congress, and in 1915–16 was TNC general secretary.¹⁸⁸ In 1916 he supported passive resistance, wrote on Ethiopianism for The International and joined Abantu-Batho staff Mabaso and Letanka on a delegation over the fate of Africans in ex-German colonies. He became prominent in the radical Industrial Workers of Africa and the ISL, and, in 1919, the anti-pass law protests.¹⁸⁹

Selby Msimang, who worked for Seme, involved himself in Abantu-Batho from at least 1913, when he acted as a ‘Corresponding Secretary’ of the SANNC and wrote several articles that December, one supposedly as ‘Abantu Bantu’s Special Commissioner’. He became embroiled in arguments raging between Dube and Msane over funds and in 1916 attacked the editors, Msane and especially Grendon, at times in terms verging on anti-Coloured prejudice. During his Johannesburg days he may also have served as a sub-editor.¹⁹⁰ He then went to the Free State, where he organised black workers and launched his own short-lived (1918–20) paper.¹⁹¹ By the early 1920s he had moved away to write in Umteteli in more moderate tones.

Skota’s autobiographical sketch says he worked as an ‘organiser and later subeditor’ on Abantu-Batho in 1912, but went to Kimberley from 1913 to 1919 and came back to be lead editor in 1928. He may have corresponded in the intervening period.¹⁹² In 1922 he was back in Kimberley and a partner with J. T. Gumede in the Inkata African Trading Corporation, then secretary of the African and Indian Trading Association Ltd, also starting a short-lived paper.¹⁹³ When he ceased editing Abantu-Batho is unclear. He may have remained until the end,¹⁹⁴ but equally may have drifted away earlier; after its demise he edited Seme’s African Leader (1932–33), using the Abantu-Batho printing press.

A 1912 letter by Xhosa writer Richard Kawa mentions another editor, Jeremiah W. Dunjwa.¹⁹⁵ Skota terms him a ‘distinguished writer and historian’ (suggesting he wrote features) who joined the paper in 1913 and became isiXhosa editor.¹⁹⁶ We know little of his press days, but, as with other editors, we glean titbits of his life from brief reports: for instance, that in 1918 he and Thema were fined £50 by Evaton railways.¹⁹⁷ Educated at Healdtown, where he came in touch with the grand old editor, Jabavu, he then taught at Klipspruit School and became active against the Land Act. In 1919, during Thema’s spell in Britain, he acted as TNC general secretary.¹⁹⁸ Like other editors, he joined the 1918–20 protests and his speech at the 1921 ICU conference was the target of an attack by Umteteli, which sought to blame Africans for the ills of labour recruitment.¹⁹⁹

Best known as Natal leader of the ICU, A. W. G. Champion joined the staff of Abantu-Batho after his September 1930 exile from Durban and ICU politics, contributing letters, articles and editorials. The Abantu Batho Press printed his pamphlet ‘Dingiswayo’ about his enforced exile. His arrival came just at the right time: ‘when our staff had been reinforced by capable business and newspaper men in the persons of Messrs. J. H. London and A. W. G. Champion our Sesoto Editor Mr. D. S. Letanka had been greatly relieved.’ Samuel Masabalala, like London a member of the ICU, also joined. His input led to increased coverage of events in Natal and the Zulu monarchy (Solomon kaDinuzulu’s evidence to the Native Economic Commission was carried), and a special illustrated feature on ICU history.²⁰⁰ In earlier years Champion had been critical of the paper; in 1919, with other members of the committee of the ‘Natal Native Congress eGoli’, he sided with Msane against the editors.²⁰¹ In his hour of need, however, he joined them:

I helped edit that paper … assisting Mr J. T. Gumede in Johannesburg while I was in restriction. … But I was not actually the editor. It was managed by some great editors. There were L. T. Mvabaza, Cleopas Mabaso, D. S. Letanka, and journalists R. V. Selope-Thema and Horatio Mbhele [M’belle], well-known men of education.²⁰²

If we go by these comments, Horatio Bud-M’belle also was an editor.²⁰³ Educated at Lovedale, he took part in political meetings in Kimberley and came to the Rand in 1912; in 1916 he worked as a clerk for Seme. Like Herbert Msane and Dunjwa, he gravitated to the Left, in 1917 writing in The International about a Trades Hall meeting to protest the Native Affairs Administration Bill that was a ‘revelation of sincere sympathy’ by white socialists.²⁰⁴ He joined the 1918 protests (see chapter 9 in this volume) and was secretary of the TNC Johannesburg branch,²⁰⁵ but of his editing we know little.

Whether prominent Sepedi literati Epafras Mogagabise Ramaila (1897–1962) was involved remains for future researchers to unravel. One work claims he was ‘an early popular contributor to Abantu-Batho (1917–1929)’.²⁰⁶ We have not located his contributions, but he may have used pseudonyms and there are possible connections. One was his role in the Transvaal Native Teachers’ Association, whose affairs Abantu-Batho reported, as in 1916, the year after he qualified as a teacher.²⁰⁷ Others were his deep interest in journalism – he edited the Berlin Mission’s Mogwara wa Babaso (Friend of the Blacks) and he was in Lydenburg from 1915, then from 1920 to 1929 at Rustenburg and Phokeng,²⁰⁸ which may have brought contact with Abantu-Batho via the active Congress branches there, as was the case with Barney Ngakane in 1921.

Finally, yet importantly, as owner from 1929 to 1931, Josiah Gumede is likely to have influenced content, done some editing and penned some articles. There is sympathetic coverage of the League against Imperialism that he chaired, of the CPSA with whom he worked, and of solidarity with other national liberation movements that he championed (see chapter 1). Others may have helped,²⁰⁹ and literati and activists such as D. D. T. Jabavu, Mqhayi, Nontsizi Mgqwetho and Charlotte Maxeke contributed, but those discussed above were the main editorial staff. Many had prior experience in journalism, which they needed to apply themselves to burning problems such as circulation and capital support.