The People’s Paper. Christopher Lowe

leaflets.⁴⁷ Lionel Forman was keen to track down copies, roping in Mac Maharaj to search London libraries, to no avail. Lacking access to early issues, he repeated S. P. Bunting’s condescension, claiming that Abantu-Batho was ‘never noticeable for its militancy’, but he recognised its significance.⁴⁸ In 1960 Bunting’s son, Brian, also a journalist and activist, characterised it as ‘vigorous and militant’.⁴⁹ The ANC-in-exile kept alive its memory in histories of the ANC by Jack and Ray Simons and Francis Meli, and in Mayibuye and Sechaba.⁵⁰ Jack and Ray Simons saw the ‘great achievement’ of the early ANC to ‘develop a national consciousness through joint action and the medium of its paper’.⁵¹ Meli emphasised it was ‘national in character’, as seen in its multilingualism, and different from the previous black press in that it was the first to be founded by leaders of a national black organisation.⁵² The ANC had keenly felt the loss since the paper’s demise. As James Zug writes, ever since it ceased, Congress had sought to replace it:⁵³ the ANC’s 1937 annual conference resolved to find a replacement.⁵⁴ In the 1940s, ANC president Alfred Bitini Xuma and Govan Mbeki saw the need to resurrect a national organ and gave some consideration to Inkundla ya Bantu. Xuma pulled back, writing in 1948, ‘[m]y fear is that if such a paper is owned by Congress, it will suffer from mass control. It will be everybody’s business and nobody’s business. … The last Abantu-Batho suffered and died from that.’⁵⁵ In 1955 the ANC still dreamed of its own paper, lack of which was a ‘very serious weakness’.⁵⁶ Even today a need is sometimes felt for a replacement. In 2010 the Nkoane Maditsi Youth League secretary mused that the ANC had founded ‘an organisational newspaper, Abantu-Batho …. A similar newspaper is much required now at the worsening stage of “communication breakdown”.’⁵⁷ In December 2010 a new paper, New Age, did appear, in some ways claiming its mantle.

      In studies of the South African press Abantu-Batho is often mentioned, but usually only in passing. Shaun Johnson describes 1880 to 1930 as the ‘golden age’ of the ‘elitist press’ – a period when Abantu-Batho ‘clearly articulated the concerns of Congress’. The paper ‘collapsed under the combined weight of serious financial and organisational problems’, although the knockout blow, as Switzer more accurately observes, was the power of its rival, Umteteli wa Bantu (The Mouthpiece of the Native Peoples).⁵⁸ In the pages of this rival, Jeff Opland uncovered the presence of a 1920s poetess and critic of Abantu-Batho⁵⁹ – our research now reveals she first wrote in the latter paper. There have been studies of other papers, including The Guardian and Inkundla ya Bantu. There are few published memoirs of early black journalists, although fragments of the lives of Plaatje and Dube have been rescued by John Comaroff, Brian Willan and Heather Hughes, while D. D. T. Jabavu wrote a short biography of his journalist father.⁶⁰ Plaatje and Skota left collections of personal papers, but these do not reveal much of their journalistic lives, although Skota did reminisce to Benson and Couzens on aspects of Abantu-Batho (see below). Another editor, A. W. G. Champion, recalled three decades later that it ‘had a fiery effect. It cooperated with the African National Congress and was written by outstanding men.’⁶¹ There is also the valuable unpublished autobiography of Thema, in which he touches on the paper, but scant traces survive of other editors such as Seme, Saul Msane, Grendon, Letanka, and Mvabaza, although its last owner, Gumede, has been the subject of a study.⁶²

      Only a handful of authors have focused directly on the paper. Chris Lowe, in unpublished papers and his doctoral thesis, presented a detailed account of aspects of the paper’s early history and drew attention to the problematic nature of much of this historiography, which often flows from a superficial reading of sources.⁶³ In several chapters of a recent book I analysed in some depth the reporting of Abantu-Batho as it related to labour, political and women’s struggles.⁶⁴ Literary scholars have also returned to an interest Couzens pioneered 30 years ago. Grant Christison has admirably detailed and explained not just the web of Swazi networks, but also the twists and turns of editors, and especially the important role of the editor-poet, Robert Grendon; and drawing on his work, Catherine Woeber points to the way in which decades of black journalism culminated in the ‘independent national press’ of Abantu-Batho.⁶⁵

      FORMATION AND HISTORY

      By 1912 the need for a Rand-based African newspaper with national aspirations was apparent. There was only one state-recognised African paper in the Transvaal in 1911 and two by the end of 1912,⁶⁶ while in the white press Africans appeared, if at all, mainly as villains in court reports.⁶⁷ Two weeks after the SANNC’s inauguration in January, Seme wrote to his African American friend Alain Locke that ‘there is a great chance here of organising and directing a Native Journalism along National Lines. There is enough money in it.’ Some months later he was given the go-ahead by Congress to establish a newspaper.⁶⁸ To consummate this goal he recruited first Cleopas Kunene and then Robert Grendon.⁶⁹ Both had close ties with Swazi rulers, reflected in a series of articles on Swazi affairs in Abantu-Batho’s first years, some of them reproduced in the Anthology in Part II.

      In September Ilanga announced the name of the new paper (Abantu) and revealed it would be weekly, published in English, Sesotho and isiXhosa, and the organ of the SANNC (and, intriguingly, also of the ‘Native Ministers’ Union, The General Conference of Native Women; The African Brotherhood Society and other native associations’). Ilanga also reported a ‘strong Executive Committee’ of the paper had formed that included ‘Basutu, Xosa and Zulu men’ in Johannesburg and Pretoria.⁷⁰ On 1 October 1912 the eminence grise of black journalism, J. T. Jabavu, gave his blessing to a rash of new papers, mentioning the imminence of those by Seme and Alfred Mangena: ‘We welcome the new people’s newspapers: “Izwe La Kiti”, “Umbuzeli”,⁷¹ “Tsala oa Batho”, and in Pretoria Mr Mangena still works at his, while Ka Isaka Seme and company establishes his in Johannesburg. The blessing of doing good work is desirable.’⁷²

      The precise date is shrouded in obscurity, but the first issue probably appeared either at the very start of November, as announced after an earlier meeting between Cleopas Kunene and Illanga staff at their offices, where he presented a mock-up copy,⁷³ or rather more likely 23 October, a date according with an article reprinted in The Christian Express on 1 November 1912 (and also with the weekly’s sequential numbering: translations from a series of isiZulu articles on Swaziland show this frequency from late December).⁷⁴ Evidence in other papers also suggests Abantu-Batho first appeared in late October.⁷⁵ A note in Leselinyana la Lesotho of 24 October, citing Mochochonono, mentioned its existence: ‘many new black newspapers have just been established’, including ‘Molomo oa Batho, Abantu, and Koranta ea Batho’.⁷⁶ Reports in Ilanga of 25 October and Izwe la Kiti of 30 October announced Kunene as editor,⁷⁷ the former mentioning his visit to its offices with a ‘sample’ of ‘a new paper which is to be issued in November in Jo’burg’; there is further mention in early December.⁷⁸ There is no evidence to support one claim⁷⁹ that it was April: this may rather refer to a decision by the SANNC executive to form the paper.

      The road to the launch was not a smooth one. Seme failed to outbid Sol Plaatje for the printing press of a short-lived Johannesburg paper called Motsualle oa Babatsho,⁸⁰ but appears to have been successful in Swaziland, where he possibly acquired the press of the lapsed Times of Swaziland. Ilanga noted his visit to the Swazi kingdom about a press.⁸¹ The visit took place in late September or October when Seme, on his return coach trip, suffered the indignity of being refused accommodation in the Lake Chrissie Hotel, only securing lodging in a stable thanks to the generosity of the black driver.⁸²

      Also obtuse is the relationship with other papers. A report from Pretoria on 11 October noted the imminence of new papers of Mangena and Seme.⁸³ Soon after, the weekly African Native Advocate of Mangena and Sefako Mapogo Makgatho appeared in Pretoria. Edited by Allan Kirkland Soga, it lasted only until 1913.⁸⁴ The Advocate’s launch in the same month as Abantu-Batho suggests either rivalry between Seme and Mangena (who a few years later formed a legal partnership) or an attempt to reach a wider audience.⁸⁵

      The new paper was strengthened by mergers and by its relationship