The capital (discussed in Lowe’s chapter in this volume) seems initially to have comprised shares worth £3,000, plus some cash. In 1919 state snooping disclosed that Seme remained managing director of the paper, run as a limited liability company of 25 originally issued and other, ‘ordinary’ shares, with Seme holding 13 and Queen Labotsibeni 12 of the original shares. Both also held 300 ordinary shares, which the queen had since redeemed; she ‘may now be regarded Chief shareholder but who takes little active interest in the paper and is now negotiating with Seme for one or other to take over all shares by both’.258 Changes in capital flow are discussed in the final chapter in this volume.
Abantu-Batho was aimed more at the political African than a broad family readership, yet black family life was circumscribed by segregation and we know little of reading habits.259 We do know that in Europe, press growth spurred the democratisation of reading, making dominant classes anxious, and readers tend to group together as part of a common habitus or ‘informal community of readers’.260 In South Africa, education was less freely accessible. Yet Abantu-Batho contributed to literacy and a reading culture, and the formation of an independent black literary culture. As Sarah Mkhonza argues, Abantu-Batho linked to the birth and growth of the ANC and helped develop political thought.261
What sort of paper was Abantu-Batho? Did it operate bureaucratically or as a collective? If the former, how does one account for diverse views and ‘Native Affairs’ reports emphasising autonomous language sections. If the latter, were chains of command present? Over time, did it become more or less centralised? Was its structure dynamic or static? To what extent were editors part of an elite and how did they relate to ‘the masses’? We offer some answers in the chapters that follow. I suggest that some sort of collective operated, just as lines to Congress ensured a degree of coherence, even rigidity.
Finally, there was limited use of images, not unusual in the press at the time. But as others began to carry more illustrations, Abantu-Batho was held back by a shortage of cash, an ancient press and limited technical knowledge. As Judy Seidman notes, it lacked the ‘in-house capacity to print complex graphic artwork’.262 As South African Worker began to experiment with woodcuts and cartoons to showcase proletarian politics, the lone cartoons in Abantu-Batho were those of advertisers, if from the late 1920s there were splendid photos of women protesters, ICU and ANC heroes, and Marcus Garvey.
These then were the features of the newspaper, its personnel and structure. Clearly, there was not a copy in every home. But Abantu-Batho played a key role in starting to challenge in print the hegemony of a state increasingly moving away from a notional liberalism to a complete denial of black rights. At times of crisis the paper even appears to have been a major explicit mobiliser and organiser of protests. It helped stimulate public debate, and interest in black journalism and literary work, developing an African public sphere and what has come to be known as ‘The New African’.263 The broadsheet was not alone in doing this, and its relationships to individuals and organisations, to political and associational life, other papers, literary and intellectual life, regional and international influences, and classes and gender, along with its themes and tussles, are explored in our chapters, which I now outline.
OUTLINE OF THE BOOK
In a pair of twinned opening chapters, Peter Limb provides a broad overview of Abantu-Batho. He reveals the main thematic content over its lifespan, first surveying politics, racism, solidarity, war and labour, and then moving on to discuss gender, education, religion, and, finally, love and leisure. If politics and race were central to Abantu-Batho, then it also recorded the social and cultural lives and religious, educational, literary and leisure pursuits of Africans. Editors and correspondents served these up in a wide variety of forms and ideologies. Binding them together was a fierce journalistic independence and assertiveness of African identities and solidarities.
The next section, ‘Founders and Editors’, comprises three chapters on some of the most significant people behind Abantu-Batho. The role and motivations of Pixley Seme in founding and initially managing the paper is analysed by Chris Saunders. Sarah Mkhonza provides a much-needed gendering of African newspaper history in rewriting Queen Labotsibeni’s life to bring out her significant role in the formation of and providing continuing support for Abantu-Batho. Closely related in its focus on the Swazi association, Grant Christison explains the involvement of the editor-poet Robert Grendon.
The section entitled ‘Themes and Connections’ brings together six chapters that plumb the rich and complex content of Abantu-Batho. Chris Lowe addresses the Swazi royal connection and pan-ethnic nationalism. Changing disciplinary tack, Jeff Opland reveals how the major Xhosa poets Nontsizi Mgqwetho and Mqhayi published in Abantu-Batho and analyses their poetic and political context. Focusing on Johannesburg, Paul Landau unpacks the ‘Shilling Strike’ of 1918 to reveal the complexities of language and translation in the reporting of Abantu-Batho and its interlocutors and police spies. In doing so, he presents a refreshing new take on the multiple language discourses going on in its columns and in crowded public meetings attended by its editors. Sifiso Ndlovu and Peter Limb examine the discourse around African royalty in the pages of Abantu-Batho, with particular emphasis on Thema’s views of King Dingane. Robert Vinson explores Abantu-Batho and Garveyism in South Africa and the African diaspora. Finally, Limb addresses the journalism and associational context, and then concludes by assessing the complex legacy of Abantu-Batho. The paper went under in 1931, but it left a memory of investigative journalism and combative politics that persisted in the consciousness of both masses and elites, and it also left behind experienced journalists who went on to other newspapers and readers who hungered for a similarly committed voice.
Part II provides access to the press itself, with a never-before published anthology of editorials, articles and letters carried from every year of its existence, hence as representative as one could be. In this select compilation of the hard-to-obtain Abantu-Batho, a host of neglected political and intellectual figures spring to life. We see not only how in the ANC’s first two decades Abantu-Batho asked complex political questions, but also how it provided a forum for people to air and debate their deep concerns about ever-present racial discrimination, and gender and labour inequalities. In its columns, writers articulated emerging discourses of African nationalist and Pan-African solidarities, as well as the assertion of the dignity of African people and their history.
ENDNOTES
1 See V. Khumalo, ‘Ekukhanyeni Letter Writers: A Historical Enquiry into Epistolary Network(s) and Political Imagination in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa’, in K. Barber (ed.), Africa’s Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006): 113–42.
2 The Basutoland papers Leselinyana la Lesotho, Mochochonono (The Comet, Maseru, founded 1910) of Abimael Tlale and M. N. Monyakoane, and Naledi ea Lesotho (Star of Basutoland, Mafeteng, 1904) would feed into Abantu-Batho and their columns provide important insights into its history.
3 T. Couzens, ‘The Struggle to Be Independent: A History of the Black Press in South Africa 1836–1960’, History workshop paper, Johannesburg, 6–10 February 1990: 16.
4 R. H. W. Shepherd, Literature for the South African Bantu (Pretoria: Carnegie Corporation, 1936): 6; P. Morris, ‘The Early Black South African Newspaper and the Development of the Novel’, Journal of Commonwealth Literature 15(1), 1980: 16; P. Limb, The ANC’s Early Years: Nation, Class and Place in South Africa before 1940 (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010): 19–20, 87.
5 Limb, The ANC’s Early Years: 94, 104.
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