Perhaps there is no better way to pay tribute to this extraordinary political leader than to take note of this homage to him by President Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom (1995): "The struggle, I was learning, was all-consuming. A man involved in the struggle was a man without a home life. I was in the midst of the Day of Protest that my second son, Makgatho Lewanika, was born. I was with Evelyn (Mandela's first wife) at the hospital when he came into the world, but it was only a brief respite from my activities. He was named for Sefako Mapogo Makgatho, the second president of the ANC, from 1917 until 1924, and Lewanika, a leading chief in Zambia. Makgatho, the son of a Pedi chief, had led volunteers to defy the color bar that did not permit Africans to walk on the sidewalks of Pretoria, and his name for me was an emblem of indomitability and courage" (p. 119). In his remarkable portrait of New African political leaders and intellectuals, Z. K. Matthews memorialized Makgatho in similar terms: "The educated man in African society must of necessity be able to serve his people in many different capacities. If he tries to do what happens in European society, namely, to specialise in one particular job and stick to his last, he is despised by his people for hiding his light under a bushel. So the man who has been trained as a teacher has also to become a preacher. When people have grievances of one kind or another, whether against a local authority or against the government, they do not have much sympathy withthe educated man who regards that as none of his business. They expect him to put his talents at their disposal and to assist them in dealing with the matters which require redress. This was much more the case in earlier days when educated people were few and far between. Thus we find that African leaders of days gone by showed competence in many different directions at one and the same time. They were versatile and were always available when their services were required by other people. Among the most versatile men og his day and generation was Samuel [sic] Mapoch [sic] Makgatho. . . . When the African National Congress was established in 1912, he was one of the foundation members and became the second president of the A. N. C. after the Rev. [John] L. Dube of Natal. . . . The writer has vivid recollections of attending a moving service at which tributes were paid to this versatile African. Enthusiastic and warm-hearted references were made to his fearlessness, his devotion to progress among his people and his willingness to spend himself in their service. All an interested observer could do was to express the wish that more would follow in his footsteps" ("Late S. M. Makgatho: . . .  Great teacher-politician", Imvo Zabantsundu, October 28, 1961). Since R. V. Selope Thema was the Secretary-General of the ANC during much of the presidency of Makgatho, his portrait of him in 1924 as President of the Transvaal ANC addressing a group of African Associations on the political issue European labour replacing African labour in the market place, has an authoritativeness and immediacy, which explains this relatively long excerpt: "The meeting which was fairly well attended was presided over by Mr. S. M. Makgatho, president of the Transvaal Native Congress [he was until the end of the year President-General of the ANC national body]. In itroducing the subject Mr. Makgatho said: He was pleased to see the representatives of the various associations for it showed him that the spirit of co-operation and unity was working among the Bantu people.They had been calledto discuss a question which cut at the root of the life of the people. The expulsion of the Natives from employment was a serious matter which required serious consideration, and which could not be tackled by one Association working independently, as it would ultimately create acute unemployment among our people. The consequences of this unemployment must be disastrous and ruinous. The Native have been rendered landless and their expulsion from employment in the industrial centres would spell national disaster. 'They' (the Natives) he declared, 'did not come into industrial centres of their own free-will; they were compelled to do so by ther white people themselves who needed their services. The Conference will remember that not long ago there was a universal cry among the European community about the laziness of the Native people. And to cure this laziness stringent laws were made to force our people to leave their 'kraals' and come into the industrial centres. In the first place they were squeezed out of the land, then a hea[v]y tax of 2 [Pounds] was imposed upon them, and then came the Natives Land Act whose cruel operation rendered thousands of our people in all the Provinces of the Union homeless and landless, thus augmenting the influx of Natives into the urban areas. Now that our 'kraal' life has been practically destroyed by the white man's own action, we are told to go bacl to the ruins of this life, there to make a fresh start and we had spent our energies in the development of the industries of this country. It is alleged that we are a danger to civilisation, a civilisation which, mind you, we have helped to build on this Southern end of the African Continent.' They would remember that the race had sacrificed, and is sacrificing, precious blood in the mines for the upkeep and maintenance of European civilisation in this country. It was unjust and cruel, therefore, that without making any provision on the land for the Native people, the Government and some of the employers of labour should embark upon this iniquitous policy. To-day there were hundreds of men out of work who would not, therefore, be in a position to pay Government taxes which were due, to say nothing about procuring the necessaries of life for themselves and those who were dependent upon them. These men were being arrested and convicted for failing to pay taxes and for vagrancy in spite of the fact that they had been thrown out of work. Beyond saying that justice would be done to Natives the Government was doing nothing to relieve this situation. Mr. Makgatho concluded his remarks by appealing for united action" ("Native Unemployment", By A Wayfarer [R. V. Selope Thema], Umteteli wa Bantu, September 27, 1924). An explanation for this emphasis on the question of African employment by Makgatho is that the ICU (Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union) in the mid 1920s was an organization that had surpassed the ANC in winning the alliance of the African people. This was the beginning moment of the ANC taking a new direction. What fascinated Selope Thema about this presentation, to the extent of taking extensive notations, is that it articlated a view that was central to his thinking at this time: that for African people there is no turning away from modernity back into tradition. Selope Thema wrote majestically on this issue in his classic essays of the 1920s in Umteteli wa Bantu. Thema coupled this historical issue at this time with the  following: New Negro modernity had much to teach New African modernity. Selope Themas autobiographical works had the following titles, Up From Barbarism (1927) and Out of Darkness: From Cattle-Herding to the Editor's Chair (1935; unpublished), as an indication of his complete rejection of tradition. It must have been profoundly gratifying for him to hear Makgatho announcing that the ANC would fully and completely embrace modernity. It may perhaps be Makgatho's full engagement with this new historical experience that allocated him a prominent place in a book that articulated the grand vision of New African modernity: T. D. Mweli Skota's The African Yearly Register: Being an Illustrated National Biographical Dictionary (Who's Who) of Black Folks in Africa