Celebrating Chief Luthuli's Life Through His Heritage Trail

By Jabulani Mzaliya

WE STAND BY OUR CHIEF!

 

As minds naturally fade and history becomes a rather distant past, colossal figures of the past do not get a mention. Yet, in many of their speeches and utterances, political leaders, academics, analysts, historians, and scholars have never forgotten to mention the name of Chief Albert Mvumbi Luthuli. His successors were portrayed as bent on the violent removal of the Apartheid Government ―unlike the Chief‖. To consolidate his ― peacefulness‖, his life is paired with the life of religion for an even greater political separation between the Chief and those who followed him. To perpetuate this distance between the Chief and the revolutionaries who followed him, the argument goes that his moments of radicalism were forced upon him by the young elements within the African National Congress and the Communists. Little is told that his religion was but one of his multi-faceted life. This tries to reduce Chief Albert Luthuli to a "moderate" when he was a revolutionary in his own right.

 

In this book, I have tried to knit together many areas of his activities, such as football, politics, music, his love for his family, his agriculture, his internationalism, his world view, his Africanism within his Zuluness, his respect across the colour and his mysterious death among others. All that is known and celebrated as if it was liked by all, including the Government of the Day, is him becoming the first African to win a Nobel Peace Prize. The difficulties he went through to be awarded that prize in Norway is so underplayed. His tenure as ANC President-General of the African National Congress during the Defiance Campaign, the Kliptown, and the Freedom Charter, Sharpeville Massacre, the women's march to the Union Buildings, and the beginning of the armed struggle are disappearing into oblivion. I have also tried to trace some of the awards, recognitions, and citations by various institutions, past and present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jabulani Mzaliya
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201641757

Jabulani Mzaliya

Jabulani Mzaliya was Special Adviser to the Minister of Energy in the Republic of South Africa. He also served as a Trustee of the Albert Luthuli Centre For Responsible Leadership based at the University of Pretoria. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Zululand (UZULU). He taught Politics at the same University. He has a Certificate in Post-Privatization, which he obtained from International Law Institute, Washington DC. He was Director of Strategic Analysis: Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) from 2001 to 2004. He was Deputy Director-General: Policy at the Department of Transport. He is Director of Transport Policy and Regulation (TRANSPOREG), a company specializing in policy and regulation of the Transport industry. The thoughts in this Paper stem from his nostalgic attachment.

Book preview

CELEBRATING CHIEF ALBERT

LUTHULI’S LIFE THROUGH HIS HERITAGE TRAIL

Jabulani Mzaliya

A Self-Published Book

Johannesburg

––––––––

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First published in 2014 by

Jabulani Mzaliya

PostNet Suite 117

Private Bag X121

HALFWAY HOUSE

1685

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©2014 Jabulani Mzaliya

2nd Edition

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

ISBN 978-0-620-63345-1

Printing and Binding: MegaDigital, Woodstock, Cape Town

The cover picture is taken from Black Christ by Ronald Harrison, one of the many artistic attributes paid to Chief Luthuli. It is currently the property of the Cape Town City Council.

Contents

Contents

Dedication

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Foreword

Introduction

The Complexity Of The Task At Hand

More Questions Than Answers

The Relevance Of Luthuli In Our Times

Early Life With An Emphasis On Sports

Some Definitional Parametres

The Man Himself

Izibongo And Praise Songs

The Burden Of Association

Contextualizing Luthuli And His Time

Physical Structures

Academic Honours and Memorials

Art and Art Forms

Nobel Peace Prize

The Road To Radicalization

Radical Christianity

Luthuli’s Legacy Hijacked

Belated Appreciation

Chieftainship

Propaganda

The Mysterious Death

Luthuli’s Funeral

Internationalism

Appeal Across The Divides

Musical Celebrations

...Some Lingering Words

Preserving Luthuli’s Legacy

Conclusions

Bibliography

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all in the heritage community who have kept the spirit and memory of Chief Albert Luthuli alive. It is also dedicated to the people of Groutville, whose humility and assistance attests to the human values of their Chief.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACA     American Committee for Africa

AM    Amplitude Modulation

AMC     African Moderates Congress

ANC     African National Congress

BAHA    Bailey African History Archives  

BBC    British Broadcasting Corporation

BCM     Black Consciousness Movement

BNC    Bantu Native Congress

BOSS     Bureau of State Security

BRICS     Brazil, Russia, India China, and South Africa

CIA   Central Intelligence Agency

CID   Criminal Investigation Division

COSAG     Concerned South African Group

COD    Congress of Democrats

COP    Conference of Parties

COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions

CPSA    Communist Party of South Africa

CRA    Commission on Religious Affairs

D & D    Durban and District Football Association

DA   Democratic Alliance

DAC   Department of Arts and Culture

DIRCO   Department of International Relations and Cooperation

DRC   Dutch Reformed Church

FIFA   Federation of International Football Associations

FM    Frequency Modulation

HSRC    Human Sciences Research Council

ICU   Industrial and Catering Workers Union

IDAF    International Defence and Aid Fund

IFP   Inkatha Freedom Party

ISIS   Islamic States of Iraq and Syria

MCTA   Motor Carrier Transportation Act.

MFA    Mak(h)an(d)a Football Association

MK    Umkhonto Wesizwe

NATU    Natal African Teachers‟ Unio

NAD    Native Affairs Department

NMC   Native Medial Council

NEC    National Executive Committee

NEUM   Non-European Unity Movement

NRC   Natives Representative Council

NUSAS   National Union of South African Students

OLB   Order of Luthuli Bronze

OLG   Order of Luthuli Gold

OLS   Order of Luthuli Silver

OUP   Oxford University Press

PAC   Pan Africanist Congress

PNBAAB  Port Natal Bantu Affairs Administration Board

PUTCO   Public Utility Transport Companies

SAAFA   South African African Football Association

SAFA   South African Football Association

SABRA   South African Bureau of Racial Affairs

SACOS   South African Council for Sports

SADET   South African Democracy Education Trust

SAHA   South African History Archives

SAHO   South African History On-Line

SAIC   South African Indian Congress

SANCO   South African National Civics Association

SANG   South African National Gallery

SANNC   South African Native National Congress

SAP   South African Police

SB   Special Branch

TRC   Truth and Reconciliation Commission

URC   Urban Representative Council

UKZN   University of KwaZulu-Natal

SOMAFCO  Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College

SG   Secretary-General

UK   United Kingdom

UNHCR   United Nations Commission for Human Rights

UN   United Nations

UNISA   University of South Africa

SAPC   South African Peace Council

SASA   South African Sugar Association

WITS   University of Witwatersrand

Foreword

T

he task that the writer has undertaken is not an easy one. While he has largely avoided normative statements as a testament to Luthuli, the collection and the cataloguing of the physical evidence of Chief Luthuli’s life is an uphill task. The labour intensity of this task is a result of Luthuli’s life being hidden from history, the ageing contemporaries, and the delayed release of accounts about him.

We get the sense that although Chief Luthuli was humbleto the point of self-denial, his industry in various vocations and positions catapulted him to the status of a revered African National Congress (ANC) leader.

To reach the higher echelons of a tribe as a chief is not a small feat. To be the first African Nobel Laureate was refreshing. Luthuli would use his Acceptance Speech to locate Africans within the broader context of human struggles, specifically South African conditions.

What adds to the novelty and peculiarity in the context of his time was that Luthuli was an elected Chief. The election put him at odds with hereditary chieftaincy and the imposition of compliant chiefs by Resident Magistrates and the Department of Native Affairs. The Government pressured him to choose between his membership in the ANC and his chieftainship. When he refused to choose, the Government stripped him of his chieftainship.

The Chief consolidated his position within Christianity because he was a product of such a religion, having been part of the peripatetic nature of his father’s work as an interpreter for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. For this reason, he received many accolades from the Church. Some institutions and honours even come from the denominations to which he did not belong from the denominations he did not belong.

The author sufficiently disabuses the reader of the notion of transporting the Chief to the values of today’s society. He argues that the Chief should be seen within the context of his time. Chief Luthuli’s radicalism, thought processing, and yearning for freedom for his people must be seen. The Chief did not separate his religion from his struggles. He reminded co-congregants to do the same.

In addition to the issues the author raises about the politics of the time, he raises three debatable issues: the Chief’s radicalism, his perceived non-violence and militancy, his appeal across the colour line, and his mysterious death. These debatable issues will continue to dodge Luthuli’s life and accounts thereof.

For such a figure to have existed axiomatically invites dishonest usurpers of his mettle. The author deals with this at length. In this area, counter-arguments will arise, particularly when some political parties are usurping the history of the South African struggle for their narrow political benefit.

I do not doubt that since the author tries to dislodge the received information, which has informed much of the writings about Chief Luthuli, there will be counterpoises and challenges. The challenges should not lead to bitter acrimonies among those who have explored the subject. Nor should it limit general scholarship about this great leader, however much there can be disagreements.

The author acknowledges that these may result but, in his view, lead to a more informed discourse. As he tries to illuminate, he raises more questions than answers. The issues he raises would need a further peeling of the onion rings that hide the subject’s core.

In closing its arguments, the book calls for some light to be brought on the subject of Luthuli’s death. His memory and heritage should be further explored. People who worked and lived with him or their offspring should make these contributions. Chief Luthuli’s subjects and Luthuli-watchers and Apartheid supporters should also add their knowledge about the Chief. The author decries that not much was revealed during the permissive platform of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

One comes to one conclusion that the story of Chief Luthuli will never be finished.

_______________________

Jeff Radebe

Minister In The Presidency

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

1

Introduction

I

am undertaking this task to contribute to the September 2012 theme of the ANC during its Centenary celebrations. Much was said about Chief Luthuli during the celebrations. I am not coming with something new. I am adding to these celebrations to illuminate the life of Luthuli to an even wider audience.

There were twelve themes in the centenary series, each celebrating the contributions of each ANC's past Presidents, starting with the first, John Langalibalele Dube, and ending with the penultimate one Thabo Mbeki. The current ANC President, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, delivered all these lectures.

Because of the vast membership and the desire to reach out to as many members and supporters as possible, there were smaller lectures in various branches by the other ANC officials and intellectuals. My task is to trace the life of ANC President-General, Chief Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, Isithwalandwe, using heritage as a stimulus.

I am aware of the revisionist designation from Chief to Inkosi, but I retain the original designation of Chief. Many other appellations now seem archaic and offensive, or even racist, but they shall be retained for a proper reflection. To modernize the appellations loses the context of time, I wish to avoid a trap.

I intend to achieve this objective despite the lack of information and scholarly work on the life and times of Chief Luthuli. There exists sufficient evidence to suggest that he walked among giants. He also accepted to stand on the shoulders of others in the true tradition of the collective ANC leadership.

I trace the Chief’s achievements at an individual level. His achievements have not been studied enough. His leadership is highlighted. I will discuss his associations with other leaders and personalities of his time. The associations assisted in enhancing his life, the lives of his colleagues, abasemaKholweni, and his movement.

This book is more of an inventory analysis than a comparator. I am not setting Luthuli up as a benchmark for comparison with any of the past and present leadership. In cases where this is done in this book, it will be aimed at illuminating my point.

There is the usual temptation to posit the past leaders with what is happening in current politics. Analysts and commentators tell readers about past leaders twisting and turning in their graves.

Or they say if he were alive today, he would have done things differently. They do so not in reverence to the past leader but to try and shame the current leadership. Frankly, nobody knows what Luthuli would have said, done, and thought under the current circumstances. Anybody who claims they do know would be irresponsibly pretentious

I acknowledge that Chief Luthuli was a human being, exposed to the vicissitudes of his environment and times. I briefly discuss his love for sports in his many human pursuits, using his love for football as an example.

I have done this to show that ANC leaders come from ordinary people, not born to be leaders, but prove themselves to be worthy of the responsibility of leading by exposing their talents from their various fields of life. In short, there is, or there should be, no ANC aristocracy.

The absence of aristocracy does not discount the prospect of other members expecting that some members will assume leadership because they happen to be the progeny of past leadership or past prominent members. Even when they rise to powerful positions, they are under constant scrutiny to lead flawlessly like their parents.

Being a progeny does not qualify others for licentious behaviour. It does not mean that they will assume positions of authority and leadership; it does not encourage the abrogation of party rules and procedures; it does not invite sloth and laziness. Lastly, it does not encourage entitlement.

I will dispel some myths about Luthuli being out of sync with the militancy of the movement he joined and led. Having highlighted the occupation of his space and contribution to the struggle, I will trace his contributions through the heritage trail he left for subsequent generations as a reference for dedicated and exemplary leadership.

I am buoyed by the word heritage precisely because Chief Luthuli used it.  In a statement issued after the Rivonia Trial on the 12th of July 1964, he saw freedom as heritage itself when he defended Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Dennis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Rusty Bernstein, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, and Andrew Mlangeni. [1]

I will argue that an age-old tendency in liberal and conservative discourses seeks to create a schism within the movement. They do so by scolding some leaders as reasonable and non-violent while allocating negative connotations of being violent, radical, and militant to others. They then proceed with this line of thinking to argue that the latter was not worth dealing with finding solutions to the intractable State challenges.

This was the shortcoming of the State’s effort to address the problems. It wanted to negotiate with those who would agree with it. Alternatively, it limited space for those leaders it considered militant while creating reasonable space for those considered moderate.

Agreeing with the State meant false negotiations and the blessing of the system the State had consciously designed to continue their rule. Any other person who did not fit this White State’s expectation was to be cast aside.

If this casting aside was done not by persuasion, it was done by any other means necessary. Conversely, anyone who aspired to the leadership of the African masses invited many expectations from this group. The aspirant (usually he) had to walk a fine line between the huge expectations of Africans and the exaggerated fears of Whites. Luthuli was in this invidious position of carrying the hopes of many Africans while the State closed the space for him to assist them.

I will intermittently raise some scholarly gaps and misrepresentations of Chief Luthuli’s life as I appeal to scholars, researchers, historians, private individuals, and art collectors to assist in closing these gaps.

Luthuli loomed so large that to ignore his presence in any context would be an injustice repeated. I will rely on these researchers to help close the deliberately created gaps. In the deliberate airbrushing of Luthuli’s life in the historiography of South Africa, the nation is likely not to appreciate how much it has achieved from its sad past.

2

The Complexity Of The Task At Hand

I

n this Chapter, I intend to highlight how complex my task is. I argue about the absence of sources or their limited illumination of events around Luthuli. The problem is further compounded by the delay in declassifying existing information and the general clamming up by witnesses to the events, i.e., those still alive.

Failure to bring the full picture of Luthuli’s life is limited by the calls and the pressures for an ahistorical approach. This approach calls for South Africa to move on and forget the past. It is a divided and checkered past, but its tribulations must be told. No country deletes its history, however uncomfortable it was.

The absence of evidence does not make my task easier of evidence. Records of Luthuli’s life have been expunged, hidden, or destroyed. Laurence states that much of what is written about Luthuli is confined to the dusty vaults reserved for banned literature.[2]

Apartheid laws still prevail by default, as SB files of political prisoners are not unclassified. The dragging of feet around the Protection of State Information Bill renders finding the truth difficult. I will return to the Special Branch’s (SB) role in Luthuli’s political life.

While some argue that the Bill (named by its opponents as the Secrecy Bill) has more nefarious motives than intended, one clause of the Bill that may solve the researchers’ misery for such projects deals with the declassification of such information.

The Bill’s opponents underplay this positive attribute. Instead, they seek to drum up aspects relating to officials with the power to make decisions. The opponents point to the State’s intentions to punish whistle-blowers and the journalists for protecting their anonymous and faceless sources.

Access to information in the hands of the SBs still resides with them, and they have the right to refuse or allow it to be released in terms of the relevant acts.

Even when they release it, the onus is on them to blacken out names that may implicate the past SB officials or their informers. Applying this information is an uphill task, and those who oppose the Bill are oblivious to this fact, preferring to argue that the Bill as it stands. seeks to hide corruption.

Even when a majority in Parliament had passed the Bill, those who did not like it within Parliament and outside it called for the Bill to be tested through the Constitutional Court process. Because there was a technical glitch in the voting process where it was accepted overwhelmingly, there were those who wanted Parliament to be recalled, at great costs, to vote on it again.

Those who recall the events of Luthuli’s time from their memories have either passed on, do not correctly recall the events, are still too afraid to talk, or do not have the evidence to prove their assertions.

Even if they remembered the events, in the absence of documentary proof to back up their assertions (and the undermining of the oral tradition of Africans), they are easily dismissed as taking the country backwards. Their dismissal is a blow to their scholarly pursuit for researchers with a historical slant.

About the shoddiness of evidence about Luthuli, Suttner stated:

unfortunately, the legacy of Chief Luthuli has been relatively neglected compared with others. As Dr Albertinah Luthuli (his eldest daughter, Ntombazana) remarked, that I (the author) want to bring him up from 6 feet under into public view. Most of the major leaders have substantial biographies written about them, which is not the case with Luthuli.[3]

The current economy has led to an ahistorical tradition emphasising studies supporting the current economy or personal wealth accumulation. Thankfully, there is a growing realization that studying the economy alone does not solve all economic problems. Even when people have economic advantages without knowing their heritage and past, they will still be unaccomplished individuals, human beings, and nations.

There is an element of history that would need to be factored in. There is no barring of economists from understanding the historical circumstances which led to the current economic conditions. The study of history is as worthwhile a discipline as all others.

In the prevailing historical determinism of Whites, tracing their life in South Africa as a continuum of prior events, from the Dromedaris landing to the Great Trek to the declaration of the Republic in 1960, the requirement for Africans to discard their historical determinism is separatist, unequal, and unfair.

To reclaim Luthuli, I will re-assert this historical determinism for Africans. I will argue that History cannot be a two-way stream. There are intertwining connections between the History of the oppressor and the history of the oppressed. There is one history. The impression that two histories conflict is a consequence of self-creation by one and denying the other’s existence.

Remembering Luthuli through the gamut of heritage platforms mentioned in this book is far removed from the obsession with the fetishization of objects. I want to unearth part of the collective history hitherto neglected, deliberately hidden, or considered unimportant in South Africa’s political narrative.

Historical studies have only been recently revived. This revival may assist the appreciation of the role played by the ANC’s past leaders. As I knit the rich life of an outstanding South African, I am reminded of the futility of digging up the past as if it has no relevance to the present. Those who question as this book does are intermittently reminded to let bygones be bygones.

The pressure to bury the past is overwhelming. If it wins, the struggle heritage against Apartheid and its icons will be lost. The tendency to ahistoricize was evident when the ANC started celebrating its centenary in Mangaung on the 8th of January in 2012.

Many independent analysts stated that President Zuma’s speech about the ANC history did not say much about other liberation organizations and the way to the future.

In unpacking Chief Luthuli, we rekindle the ANC values as displayed by its past leaders. The current generation can learn to uphold them for the future. No aspersions are cast on the current generations.

Neither am I subtracting from historical memory the role that was played by the other liberation movements in the struggle for a free South Africa. However, Chief Luthuli attracted so much honour and respect that those who look up to him stand to benefit immensely.

There are other liberation movements and organizations which were part of the struggle against the tyranny of Apartheid other than the ANC. I do not have the luxury to mention and interrogate them in the same breath.

Mosala went further than just admitting this fact. He has penned a powerful identification of the three organic intellectuals, Luthuli, Sobukwe, and Biko, representing a different ideological persuasion. All joined by the intellectualism Mosala argues about.[4]

Mosala puts them firmly within the three leaders’ understanding of their Africanness as a tool rather than a hindrance.

Mosala’s paper raises a far more important question. He debunks the myth of a separate struggle and the ideological positions underpinning them. African unity was paramount to these three leaders, but this stressing of ideological disconnect served the State’s interest to keep the African divided. It is debilitating that common ground has not been found. The gradual demise of liberation movements in post-Apartheid South Africa is a cause for concern.

I do not want to be so presumptuous as to speak of "the operation of forces independent of our will." Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Xolela Mangcu, quoting Georges Lefebvre, intimates when he persuades the ruling party to tell its story, but more interestingly and credibly.[5] He is aware that the story of the ANC is best told by the people who experienced historical events.

There are many other engagements with plans for the future ANC trajectories. The book reflects the ANC’s past Presidents in the centenary year. By putting in the public domain the achievements of these leaders, the ANC should not be claiming them as their own but as icons for all South Africans.

I shall present Luthuli as a human being rather than a deity and call for South Africans to take from his example what they can. I have noted Couper’s concluding remarks at the Diakonia unpacking of his book, which I quote extensively. He warns that his intention in writing the book, Bound By Faith was to avoid idolatry towards political parties.[6]

Political parties are a social reality. Their co-existence with the Word of God, as Couper argues, is but a coincidence of life. It is not a prerequisite that leaders be aligned with God in the manner he does.

There are bunfights about the icon, his location in the struggle, philosophy, and vision. This bun fight (a nice one) will always exist between the political animals, such as self-praisingly, I think I am, and the religious animals, such as Couper and others. It makes for debates in scholarship.

The marriage of the two animals in Luthuli’s life requires cooperation and common understanding between and amongst the protagonists (and antagonists) in the contestation for interpreting him.

If one animal were to claim Luthuli as belonging to their domain, his fullness would be lost. The zero-sum game and guaranteed mutual destruction do not make for good discourse.

I support their appreciation of Luthuli’s religious other half. However, I have a problem when this is done to the total exclusion of his other half, the political one. There is an even unfair avoidance of Luthuli’s other life; the commercial and the business. The neglect of one and the highlighting of the others lose the totality of this man.

In researching Luthuli, it is glaring that what passes for evidence has either been tainted or supports a particular view of Luthuli. The dominating view is the received one, meaning that South Africans were not given the space to make up their minds. The views they had about Luthuli were mostly hidden. Being received creates the impression that it is inviolate and cannot be challenged.

Because it is provided by academia, there is a fear of contradicting it as it happens to whatever comes from this quarter. I hear protestations contradicting my position, saying that it is thoroughly researched because it is there in black and white. In a newspaper nogal, or on the radio, it is true. In some cases, misleading newspaper headlines and radio news catch the attention and lead to an informed opinion.

The ready acceptance extends the level of belief that whatever Whites say is correct. The faultlessness of Whiteness is captured best by the Basothos when they say, "Legoa ali bui maaka" (the white man does not lie). These preconceived notions of absolute correctness do not for a good discourse make.

One headline puzzled me in so far as the incontrovertibility of newspaper headlines. It was The Real Luthuli by The Witness. Subconsciously, those who do not interrogate issues, who do not read the whole article, or who are uninformed are left with an impression that there were two Luthulis: the fake one and the real one.

Sithole and Mkhize are talking about this when they talk about the many Luthulis.[7] There was one Chief Luthuli. In him were captured several personalities, multi-skills, talents, and skills. How one wishes he were in these professions where his postulations would be readily and unquestioningly believed.

There is also an observation with the media of the time. Save for a few that those who wrote for external media houses did not want to reveal themselves. The reasons for these are not known, but many wrote their by lines as Own Correspondent.

This limits the need to thread the line of thinking of the journalists. We are left with the doubt that they might have been afraid of intimidation, including deportation.

An inadequate account of Luthuli (I avoid the use of full account because this, in academic inquiry, is near impossible) is not helped by the perennial weakness of the South African scholarship. A certain section of the group dominates it. The tools that would have made others balance the account about Luthuli, such as the tool of morality, are not receiving the same attention as the other tools do.

It is also not helped by the low reading culture in South Africa across the board. The claim that Whites read and Blacks cannot be substantiated. Even if this were true, the reading Whites would avoid reading and promoting material on the past of their surfeit and the period of Black marginalization.

As if reflecting on the past through reading, the controversy denuded its curative abilities. However, it is in realizing this that the sad past can be closed. It is precisely for closing the past that I am deliberately opening the old wounds.

Conservative scholarship has inclusively engaged three issues. These are Luthuli’s attitude towards the armed struggle, his Christianity superseding his political vision for South Africa, and his mysterious death. All these are recurring questions. I do not pretend that my views will bring closure to the arguments and counterarguments.

Working backwards, I knit together what is remembered about this leader. I am going back to the future. This reconstruction effort is made difficult because human interaction between Luthuli and his co-leaders and contemporaries, which could enrich this discourse, was heavily restricted.

Political analyst Matshiqi has a favourite apophthegm, gradually morphing to the status of an idiom relating to evidence. He states:

The absence of evidence does not mean the evidence of absence.[8]

I understand Matshiqi to be claiming that somewhere out there, there is information and researchers who should delve deeper into issues of history and posterity rather than raise their hands in the air in defeat.

I also understand him imploring researchers to deal with the reticence of those who may know a thing or two about the events during Luthuli’s time a blow. This will require that we persuade them to volunteer the information to solidify scholarship.

I will have to squeeze stones to find the evidence Matshiqi is alluding to. I do not have to adopt a magpie mentality: collecting and writing almost everything about Chief Luthuli and claiming it is the only part of his heritage. I am open to criticism. In my effort not to be a magpie, I may have left out what others consider relevant to them.

The reconstruction of Luthuli’s life is thanks largely to the Luthuli Museum in KwaDukuza and the Bailey African History Archives (BAHA). Sterling work on the back to the future approach is provided by South African History Online (SAHO), the Alan Paton Centre, and Struggle Archives at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), the archiving efforts of the ANC and the O’Malley Archives.

The University of South Africa (UNISA) Archives and the Wits History Project provided some records which made this book possible. Before this book was released, archival material was released through the cooperation between the ANC and the Netherlands Institute of Social Movements. I will direct future researchers to study this latest source for their heritage knowledge extension.

The Schomburg Centre, where some of Luthuli’s Papers were preserved during Luthuli’s daughters’ stay in Georgia, Atlanta in the United States (US), also provides a body of knowledge. Benson’s book on Luthuli’s life has helped this book.[9] (This talks about the Transatlantic collaboration, which I will discuss later. I will use work that has been done in other archives, libraries, and galleries.

Some of these archives, libraries, and galleries have hitherto not been well-publicized, such as the African Archives at UNISA and the archives at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS).

A Zulu newspaper, Ilanga LaseNatal, which John Dube had established in the early 1900s, captured African life for a long time. Some material in this book is quoted from it, particularly the Weekly Review and Commentary written under Busy Bee. The nickname belonged to the editor, H.I.E. Dhlomo, mentioned later

These materials are copies shared and forwarded by international universities with first-hand access. The migration of these South African materials emphasizes the laxity of our academic institutions towards preserving the past. There is a need to appreciate these foreign institutions' role in preserving and then sharing with the true owners.

It would be appreciated if the spreading and sharing also included the historically disadvantaged institutions (HDI) to share the knowledge already being shared by the global academic community.

These sources, I should emphasize, do not represent the full picture. Researchers should always meander through the records not hidden towards the end of the Apartheid regime in the early nineties. They should also interrogate the organized arson of State records which required the conscious deployment of a State steel company, iron smelters and metal incinerators, and steel company’s furnaces rather than the normal paper shredding machines.

The TRC was a high-profile restorative justice platform. It was so scary to those who had undermined human rights and tried to avoid it. They committed secondary crimes, such as the desecration of State archives, which carries a legal sanction of its own; obfuscation and lying under oath and sanctioned obfuscation. Instead of releasing information about the past, they used this platform to exonerate themselves and hide more than they revealed. The Harms Commission, which had come before the TRC, had suffered a similar fate.

It may well be to the advantage of preserving Luthuli’s legacy that the Papers that were once stored at the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture be transferred to the Luthuli Museum for ease of access for the public.[10] Mama Luthuli had feared that the Papers would be lost. She wanted to give them to Chief Buthelezi for safekeeping. Her daughters’ advice was that they would be safer at the Luthuli Memorial Foundation in London.

Thulani Gcabashe, who was married to Thandeka Luthuli, a businessman who could move in and out of South Africa, was handed these papers to the Foundation. He did not hand them over and take them to the US.

ANC efforts to retrieve them through the late Professor Ben Magubane and Fred Dube did not succeed because Thulani refused to hand them over. Thandi later took them to the Schomburg Centre for microfilming.

These microfilmed papers are the ones that are at the UNISA’s Pretoria Library. The original papers themselves are still not known. It would assist the family in knowing where the originals are. It could be that the slowly growing inventory of archival material that is now found in South African universities results from the release of these records.

Thandi’s husband, Thulani, is credited with having worked on the collection inventory that has been made available to South African archival repositories and universities. Both need to be thanked for the task of preserving their father’s memories for posterity.

Thandi felt that the movements’ records and affairs during Luthuli’s time would be forgotten. The opportunity presents itself to return the papers home. There is no better place than the Luthuli Museum.

As other pieces have, the multiplier effects can be reaped from this location. Somewhere in this book, I make mention of these multiplier effects, not because I am inventing them, but because they (multiplier effects) are inherently part and parcel of any heritage discourse.

I am mentioning these repositories not to unpack what they (repositories) hold in their archives but to merely state that they exist as living memories of what and who Luthuli was. There is a need to repeat the point that these repositories do not reveal the whole story. It is up to other researchers to unpack the other aspects of Luthuli’s leadership other than those in this book.

The paucity of evidence leads me to rely on secondary sources and use multimedia approaches in line with the advances in technology, such as the digitization of the Luthuli Museum in Groutville. There is one instructive autobiography, Let My People Go, banned in South Africa during his life.[11] It was translated to French by Buchet/Chastel meant that it reached more audiences than South