Sol Plaatje at 150: why a pioneering South African change-maker still inspires today

On 9 October 1876, Solomon Tshekisho “Sol” Plaatje was born in the rural interior of what is now South Africa. He was raised in a Setswana-speaking Barolong family and grew up on a German mission station in the then Cape Colony.

At this time, the region was made up of a mix of British colonies, independent Boer republics, and territories under African control. It was only in 1910 that white rule would be consolidated under the nation state of South Africa. Race policies hardened, ultimately developing into the adoption of apartheid in 1948.

By the time of his death in 1932, Plaatje was one of the most respected and prominent Black people of his generation, recognised for his abilities even by his detractors. Today Plaatje may be best known as a pioneering journalist, newspaper editor and writer, a campaigner for rights, and founding general secretary of the resistance movement that would one day govern a democratic South Africa, the African National Congress. But he was much more besides, as research continues to reveal.

As a scholar of South African literary and intellectual traditions, I have researched Plaatje and his work for many years. In my view, he matters today on the world stage and across so many realms because his legacy has both influenced and transcended politics in South Africa. It connects to wider movements and efforts for meaningful change and innovation.

He refused to let his fight against racial injustice and subjugation remain isolated. He understood that the British Empire operated worldwide, and actively connected with key figures in the global Black diaspora on his travels and through correspondence. He also formed ties with the women's suffrage movement. He spoke out in support of African migrant workers in South Africa. He interacted with universities at home and abroad, which opened up new understandings of Africa.

Plaatje's legacy is compelling also in that it merged insights and elements from across knowledge systems, languages and creative practices, which he put in conversation with each other. His friends called him the “walking library” because of his grasp of literatures from far and wide, as well as oral histories, news and commentaries. His reading included Shakespeare, whose plays he would go on to translate. He drew on this rich mix to engage with prime ministers, leaders of different persuasions, crowds in a range of countries, readers of diverse publications, and ordinary people he met on his way.

Plaatje himself kept looking back in order to speak to the present and future. In his 1916 protest book, Native Life in South Africa, for example, he elaborated on times past to highlight “changes for the worse” instigated by the then new 1913 Natives Land Act. In his 1930 novel Mhudi, he zeroed in on the era of the Great Trek a century earlier, involving a temporary alliance between the Barolong and Boers. It offered a kind of corrective to official Afrikaner versions, while also widening Barolong historiography about the conflict with the Matabele.

His 150th birthday propels us to do the same: to make considered assessments of what has gone before so we can recalibrate our outlook and renew efforts for change.

New insights

In recent years, we have seen major new South African biographical treatments of Plaatje offer deeper dives into a life lived to the full and pushed to the extreme.

These have come in the form of historian Brian Willan's expansive Sol T. Plaatje: A Life (2018) and writer Sabata-Mpho Mokae's evocative translation into Setswana of the late doctor and teacher Modiri Molema's 1965 manuscript in English, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje: Lover of His People (2022).

The biographical approach has been complemented by historian Khumisho Moguerane's Morafe: Person, Family and Nation in Colonial Bechuanaland, 1880s-1950. This kind of work has implications for how we think about Plaatje – not only as a stand-out national figure in his own right, but embedded in community tied together by civic and moral values.

Sol T. Plaatje: A Life in Letters (2020) adds further to our understanding of Plaatje's inner life and versatility. It includes many letters in Setswana and in translation. Later letters shed light on his shift from frontline political activism toward radical language preservation of Setswana. He saw these efforts as inextricably intertwined.

African languages

Adding to this important emphasis on language are recent re-evaluations of Plaatje's works. One is Mhudi, considered the first full-length novel in English to have been written by a black South African. Another is his earlier Mafeking Diary, written while under siege in the South African War.

One aspect centres on the tensions and possibilities of writing across languages and cultures: English, the language introduced by imperial Britain, and Setswana with its deep underpinnings of spoken or oral culture.

Out, too, in time for the 150th anniversary, is a new edition of Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings. It collates key contributions by Plaatje in English, illustrating how he influenced early debates on land, citizenship, translation, and many other issues. Editor Brian Willan points, too, to the work of academics like Mokae and Lesley Mofokeng in illuminating Plaatje's writing in Setswana, furthering the decolonising project.

Scholar Bhekizizwe Peterson underlined how Plaatje advocated for African languages to take up their rightful place in an appreciation of “world culture”.

Then and now, African languages remain largely under-acknowledged. Their promotion and preservation lack support compared with those considered to be at the global “centre”. To add to the complexity, in an age of artificial intelligence (AI), African languages occupy a notably under-represented position in global AI systems, increasing the risk of Africa's greater marginalisation.

Studying, nurturing, and giving due credence to African languages played no small part in Plaatje's life work. And yet it was no contradiction that he excelled in English and other “imposed” languages.

There is a long way to go in securing the prominence of African languages. But there are also impressive Africa-based technology initiatives working to achieve meaningful participation for African languages in the AI knowledge domain, while protecting the continent's cultural capital, languages and data sovereignty. To do this is to take up Plaatje's call in the new era.

Janet Remmington has received funding in the past from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.

By Janet Remmington, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of York

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