John Langalibalele Dube (22 February 1871 – 11 February 1946) was a South African essayist, philosopher, educator, politician, publisher, editor, novelist and poet. He was the founding president of the
South African Native National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
(SANNC), which became the African National Congress in 1923. He was an uncle to Dr
Pixley ka Isaka Seme
Pixley ka Isaka Seme (c. 1881 – June 1951) was a South African lawyer and a founder and President of the African National Congress.
Early life
Seme was born the fourth son of Sinono Kuwana Seme in Durban, in what was then called the Colony of ...
with whom they founded SANNC along. Dube served as the president of SANNC between 1912 and 1917. He was brought to America by returning missionaries and attended
Oberlin Preparatory Academy.
["John Dube"]
Oberlin. He returned to South Africa, where in 1903 he and his first wife,
Nokutela Dube
Nokutela Dube (1873 – 25 January 1917) was the first South African woman to found a school. She cofounded the '' Ilanga lase Natal'' newspaper, Ohlange Institute and Natal Native Congress (the precursor to the South African Native National Co ...
, founded a newspaper, what is now ''
Ilanga lase Natal
''Ilanga lase Natal'' (''The Natal Sun'' or ''Sun of Natal'') is a Zulu language newspaper, published in KwaZulu-Natal. It was the first ever newspaper to be published in the language. It was co-founded in 1903 by John Langalibalele Dube. ''.
In 1901 he founded the Ohlange High School based on the Tuskegee Institute founded by Booker T Washington. He also wanted black people to go into business, so in 1903 he founded the isiZulu newspaper ''Ilanga''. In 1930, John Dube published "Shaka's Body Servant." He also wrote about the lives of Zulu rulers, including King Dinizulu.
He was a conservative politician. His ANC was not a militant party of the 1960s, but he never lost sight of two things:
human rights, and the need for Africans to stand together. That was the message John Langalibalele Dube was preaching until he died in 1946.
Early life
John Langalibalele was born in
Natal
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ...
at the
Inanda mission station of the American Zulu Mission (AZM), a branch of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...
, whose Southern African mission churches later merged with sister Congregational mission churches of the
London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational miss ...
and
Congregational Union
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
of South Africa to form the
United Congregational Church of Southern Africa
The United Congregational Church in Southern Africa began with the work of the London Missionary Society, who sent missionaries like Dr. Theodorus van der Kemp to the Cape colony in 1799. He was established the first Congregational church in Cape T ...
(UCCSA). His father, the Rev.
James Dube, was one of the first ordained African pastors of the AZM. Dube began his formal education in Inanda and
Adams College
Adams College is a historic Christian mission school in South Africa, associated with the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA). It was founded in 1853 at Amanzimtoti a settlement just over south of Durban by an American missio ...
,
Amanzimtoti
Amanzimtoti is a coastal town just south of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The town is well known for its warm climate and numerous beaches, and is a popular tourist destination, particularly with surfers. The annual sardine run attracts m ...
.
The Reverend
William Cullen Wilcox
William Cullen Wilcox (August 6, 1850 – January 26, 1928) was an American missionary to South Africa. With his wife, Ida Belle Clary Wilcox, he "adopted" John Dube, who was to be the first President of the African National Congress and the first ...
was called in to talk to Dube, who was misbehaving at the Adams School. His father James Dube was then the Congregational minister at Inanda.
["John L. Dube – A Biographical Sketch"](_blank)
Oberlin College. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
In 1887, the Wilcox family were returning to the United States and John Dube and his mother persuaded the missionary couple to take Dube to America, where he could further his education. The Cullens agreed on the condition that Dube was to maintain himself financially; however, they advised him, and William found him his first work on the road gang when he arrived in America.
Dube went to
Oberlin Academy Preparatory School and, although he studied printing and self-help, he did not graduate.
Dube was born of royal lineage and was, by right, a chief of the Qadi tribe. Because of his father's conversion to Christianity by early missionaries in pre-republic South Africa, he did not rule over the Qadi people. Dube's surname was actually
Ngcobo
Ngcobo (formerly Engcobo) is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
Ngcobo is the main town of the Engcobo Local Municipality, which falls within the Chris Hani District Municipality of the Eastern Cape. It is situated in the weste ...
, who had the chieftaincy of the Qadi people of the
Zulu.
Statesman
![ANC1914](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/ANC1914.jpg)
For a missionary-educated person there was conflict between the newly arrived Western education and African traditional society. However, Dube navigated this social schism with a statesman-like ability, as in his later years, when he was able to win the trust of the Zulu royal family. It is conceivable that Dube would never have been part of the SANC, except that his teaching and discourse on the necessity of unity chimed in with the then-nascent political atmosphere. It is now fashionable for biased historians to mention Dube's conservatism as evidence of his eventual parting of ways with ANC. But, actually, the truth is that the ANC was never a radical movement on the call of such issues as
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...
until it was radicalised by the formation of the
ANC Youth League
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC). As set out in its constitution, the ANC Youth League is led by a National Executive Committee (NEC) and a National Working Committee (NW ...
in the 1940s.
Dube's speeches as president of a black political mass-movement have never been made available. The next formation of black people into a coherent socio-political movement was to come into being with
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...
's
, founded in 1914. In his politics Dube was cautious and conservative, yet he was forthright on the rights of blacks and the paramount tenet of unity – he foresaw the necessity of the unity of black people long before Garvey came to the international scene.
Educator
![Mid 1930s John and Angelina Dupe with l to r Nomagugu-Joan Lulu-James Sipho -Douglas Sobanto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Mid_1930s_John_and_Angelina_Dupe_with_l_to_r_Nomagugu-Joan_Lulu-James_Sipho_-Douglas_Sobanto.JPG)
Dube was also an educator, a speaker of note on the circuit engaging whites in lectures around the country. In 1901 he and his first wife,
Nokutela Dube
Nokutela Dube (1873 – 25 January 1917) was the first South African woman to found a school. She cofounded the '' Ilanga lase Natal'' newspaper, Ohlange Institute and Natal Native Congress (the precursor to the South African Native National Co ...
, founded the Zulu Christian Industrial School which is now the
Ohlange High School
Ohlange High School is a secondary school in Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded by John Dube and Nokuthela Dube née Mdima. at Ohlange, near
Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
and
EkuPhakameni
eKuPhakameni is a small town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa that was set out by one of the largest African Christian sects, the Nazareth Baptist Church. INkosi Isaiah Shembe
Isaiah Mloyiswa Mdliwamafa Shembe (c. 1865John Langalibalele Dube ...
.
This was the first educational institution in South Africa to be founded by black people.
[Simanga Kumalo; Neville Richardson (2010)]
"Seth Mokitimi and education for ministry: What's in a Name?"
''Missionalia'', Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 259–274. He gave lecturers by invitation and he was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy as a result. His role as an educator has been less documented, but he held and proposed views on education and culture that were to be used in inimical ways by the
Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
government when it came into power in 1948 and legislating the
Bantu Education Act
The Bantu Education Act 1953 (Act No. 47 of 1953; later renamed the Black Education Act, 1953) was a South African segregation law that legislated for several aspects of the apartheid system. Its major provision enforced racially-separated educati ...
. Dube had identified the need to combine Western education with local customs and traditions, all grounded in broad African communal behaviour. His theories on education are found in both ''Ukuziphatha'' and ''Isita''.
Man of letters
He was among the pioneering men of letters who helped to establish Zulu literature. He was one of the first published Zulu authors, although the first published Zulu book was written by
Magema Fuze, whose history of the Zulus, ''Abantu abamnyama lapo bavela ngakona'' (translated as "The Black People and From Whence They Came"), was published in 1922 having been written in the 1880s and early 1890s. Dube's first published work was an essay in English on self-improvement and public decency that was published in 1910. The work that was to earn him the honorary doctorate of philosophy was the essay ''Umuntu Isita Sake Uqobo Lwake'' ("A man is his own worst enemy") (1992)(text in pre-1936 Zulu old orthography). He went on to publish a historical novella that has proven to be popular and influential in Zulu canon titled ''Insila kaShaka'' ("Shaka's Body Servant") (1930). Dube also embarked on writing biographies of the Zulu royal family, especially that of King Dinizulu, making him the first biographer in African literature. There are numerous other works of less significant literary quality such as the essay ''Ukuziphatha''
n Behaviour(1910).
In addition to his literary works, Dube and his wife founded the first
Zulu/English newspaper,
[ ''Ilanga laseNatali'' (The Sun of Natal), in 1903, a publication that in 2003 celebrated its centenary. ''Ilanga laseNatali'' is no longer independent since being bought by the then proto-political association ''Inkatha yeNkululelo yeSizwe'' in 1988, led by ]Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Prince Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi (born 27 August 1928) is a South African politician and Zulu traditional leader who is currently a Member of Parliament and the traditional prime minister to the Zulu royal family. He was Chief Minister of the ...
, later to be known as a political party in post-apartheid South Africa called Inkatha Freedom Party
The Inkatha Freedom Party ( zu, IQembu leNkatha yeNkululeko, IFP) is a right-wing political party in South Africa. The party has been led by Velenkosini Hlabisa since the party's 2019 National General Conference. Mangosuthu Buthelezi founded t ...
(IFP). Dube wrote and edited numerous editorials for the paper and under various pseudonyms as well as publishing some indifferent poems. He nurtured journalists who later went on to become editors at his paper and contributed to the flourishing field of Zulu literature.
Dube and his first wife, Nokutela Dube, are credited with popularizing the Enoch Sontonga
Enoch Mankayi Sontonga ( – 18 April 1905) was a South African composer, who is best known for writing the Xhosa hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (), which, in abbreviated version, has been sung as the first half of the national anthem of South ...
song "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
"Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (, ) is a Christian hymn originally composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa people, Xhosa clergyman at a Methodism, Methodist mission school near Johannesburg.
The song became a pan-African liberation song and ver ...
". This later became a national anthem after Ohlange Institute's choir used it. They played it at the South African Native National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...
meeting in 1912. It was sung after the closing prayer and the ANC adopted it as its official closing anthem in 1925.["Enoch Mankayti Sontonga"](_blank)
SAHistory.org.za. Retrieved July 2013.
Influenced by Booker T. Washington
Dube had experienced first-hand the influence of Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American c ...
in his travels to the USA to expand his education in early 1890. He and his wife founded the Ohlange High School
Ohlange High School is a secondary school in Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded by John Dube and Nokuthela Dube née Mdima. in 1901, a school dedicated to teaching Bantu
Bantu may refer to:
*Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages
*Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language
* Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle
*Black Association for National ...
women modern ways to be liberated and find a place in modern society. In his ''Ukuziphatha'' Dube had identified the Bantu woman as the weakness in developing Bantu society because of the society's restrictions on education for women and what he identified as woman's propensity to ephemera. Dube was particularly influenced by reading Washington's '' Up From Slavery'' (1901), a book on self-reliance, the gospel that was taught by the American sage Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
. Washington's book proved immensely influential in Bantu thought and across the black world. It was subsequently translated into several Bantu languages in South Africa, but Dube never chose to translate it, instead putting its teachings into practice. This was a feat that was never duplicated, except by Garvey and his movement and, on a minor scale, by the political figure Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known ...
in his hometown of King William's Town
Qonce, formerly known as King William's Town, is a city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The city is about northwest of the Indian Ocean port of East London. Qonce, with a population of around ...
in the province of the Eastern Cape. Dube had been inspired by Washington's Tuskegee Institute
Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature.
The campus was de ...
; years later Marcus Garvey attempted to see Washington because of a similar inspiration, though he arrived in the US in 1916, Washington had died the previous year. Dube's school is still functioning today. Dube was a firm believer in self-reliance, both as an ethical and spiritual quest towards realisation of dignity and respect in the eyes of others. In ''Isita'' he preached self-reliance and the need for black people to initiate economic ventures to gain respect in the eyes of the world.
Nokutela and John Dube's organisation success was not matched in their marriage. Their failure to have children was seen to reflect badly on Nokutela and John fathered a child with one of their pupils. A committee was set up to investigate John, but they took no action and Nokutela felt humiliated. The couple separated in about 1914, and Nokutela moved to the Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal.
* South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
until she became ill with kidney disease. She returned to live with John Dube in Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
, and died in 1917 at the age of 44. Her funeral was attended by Pixley ka Isaka Seme
Pixley ka Isaka Seme (c. 1881 – June 1951) was a South African lawyer and a founder and President of the African National Congress.
Early life
Seme was born the fourth son of Sinono Kuwana Seme in Durban, in what was then called the Colony of ...
and other prominent members of what was to become the African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...
.[Nokutela Dube]
Johannesburg City Parks. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dube, John
1871 births
1946 deaths
Anti-apartheid activists
Colony of Natal people
Members of the Order of Luthuli
Newspaper founders
Oberlin College alumni
People from Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal
Presidents of the African National Congress
South African newspaper editors
South African political party founders
Zulu people