Alfred Mangena was quintessentially one of the most outstanding first generation of New African intellectuals who constructed the historixal horizon and intellectual content of the New African Movement. He was fundamentally one of South Africa’s great African modernist. Mangena acquired the modernist sensibility and outlook through an outstanding education in England as well as through his political praxis in our country. He completed his matriculation in Great Britain and studied law at Lincoln’s Inn in London. It was while studying law that the Bambata Rebellion of 1906 occurred in Natal. His modernist political sensibility manifested itself and made itself evident in his submitting two petitions to the British government on behalf of Bambata’s  men who were facing court martial in Natal. He went still further by initiating a political and court case in London against the Governor of Natal for having proclaimed martial law in the province which Mangena considered illegal and unconstitutional. When he was attacked by a representative of the Natal government in London, he vindicated himself by suing for libel. By these actions Alfred Mangena showed himself to be attuned to the legal knowledge necessary to participate fully in the new historical experience of modernity. It was perhaps this political action by a New African intellectual of defending the political and legal rights of New African masses that made a lasting and profound impression on Pixley ka Isaka Seme, who was a fellow student at Lincoln’s Inn. Seme himself had shown himself to be a brilliant New African intellectual, for while he was still an undergraduate student at Columbia University in New York City a few years earlier had written a classic essay “The Regeneration of Africa” (1903) from which the emergence of the New African Movement is traced. It was in a sense a manifesto calling on the African people to consciously participate in the making of modernity. When they were both back in South Africa, Pixley ka Isaka Seme in 1912 launched the African National Congress (ANC). Alfred Mangena was one of its principal founders. When a year later the white Parliament in South Africa passed the Natives’ Land Act of 1913, which in effect confiscated land from Africans, Alfred Mangena worked closely with another law graduate of Lincoln’s Inn, Richard W. Msimang, to legally challenge the law. It was about this law that Solomon T. Plaatje wrote his incomparable book Native Life in South Africa. In 1913 with another powerful New African political intellectual, Sefako Mapogo Makgatho, Alfred Mangena founded a newspaper called the African Native Advocate, better known simply as the Native Advocate. The newspaper was edited by the extraordinary New African, Allan Kirkland Soga, the son of Tiyo Soga. Unfortunately, the newspaper only lasted for about a year and no surviving copies have been found. What is fascinating about the historical context of the interaction of the New African intellectuals and political leaders within the New African Movement in the making of South African modernity, is the historical consciousness of themselves as the pathfinders of new perspectives, new praxes, new sensibilities which were necessary in the liberation of the New African masses. In other words, they were historically conscious of their responsibilities, achievements, attainments and commitments. Impressed by the achievement, daringness and audacity of Alfred Mangena while a student in London in challenging the suppression of the Bambata Rebellion, John Dube, founder of the Ohlange Institute, commissioned Pixley ka Isaka Seme to write for his newspaper, Ilanga lase Natal, a portrait of his fellow student. Here is the complete biographical and intellectual portrait of Alfred Mangena by Pixley ka Isaka Seme while they were both students in London in 1908 which appeared in Durban-based newspaper: “It has not yet happened in history that Zulus have had an occasion to celebrate a hero like mine. In saying this I am not denying the fact that the Africa race too has sent stars to the galaxy of heaven. Yes, indeed one casual glance into the records of history reveals the fact that genius is like a spark which concealed in the bosom of a flint bursts forth at the summoning strokes and that it may arise anywhere and in any race. We can count among those of pure African blood men great in wisdom and profound learning; those whom ages call ‘The wise’, professors of eminent distinction in great universities, kings of independent nations which have burst their way to liberty by their own vigour. In fact history says with a clear and positive voice that in both Church and State Africa has made conspicuous and imperishable contributions. However, to the Zulus my hero stands out in a singular record. Without an antecedent he has achieved for our ambitious youth a new star upon which to fix their compass, in their journey through these hard and perilous seas. He is a Zulu and therefore his example forms for us a real and positive encouragement and his success we can make  our own. Mangena’s father Stomela was a veteran of the wars of Dingaan and later of the Zulu war. During the latter he fought on the Zulu side. Mangena tells me that he was born near Ladysmith. When quite small his parents moved with him to Cape Colony near Clarkburg where he attended a mission school. Although still very young he found growing within him a powerful desire to master fesh knowledge. Thus his ambition began to speak to him in an undefined voice. He studied here up to 5th standard, at which point the course was open to him to become a teacher. But here the lad felt that a school master’s career could not realize the fulness of his ambition. The biggest thing which came to his notice was Johannesburg with its inspiring tales of bold adventure and great fortunes. He broke off his school-connections therefore and went to the city of gold. Mangena was not very long in Johannesburg before he discovered the fact that he could not win the coveted prize without possessing scientific knowledge. In order to gain this he entered the apprenticeship in the Roodeport Mines and here he served three years without pay. After completing his course the same Company offered him a lucrative position of trust and responsibility. Mangena accepted the offer and thus became at once assistant manager of the gold assaying department. Here we find this Zulu  lad serving and drawing a big salary being to the Company an expert refiner of Gold and as one by them proved worthy to take full charge of all the invaluable gold supply which came from their mines. His experience and service as assayist, in this firm, marks Mangena out as a man. Yes,  as that abundant type of Zulu character for which his countrymen  may well be proud and which we push forward as the argument for our faith and hope in the regeneration of Africa. For we believe that it is possible to have av Africa in which the black man and the white man though different may both work, help and respect one another. In Johannesburg also then we find that Mangena attempted the highest and he got it. Money, however, could not fill up his great ambition. He wished to serve his people in some conspicuous way, but yet he knew not how. Most clearly however he was conscious of his personal limitations and therefore he desired to obtain a greater knowledge. This conviction finally led him to resign his position and go to Cape Town where he joined the ‘Collegiate School’ his first intention being to join the Civil Service under the Cape Government. However when the time for examination came he found himself already disqualified by age. This period gives us---the more critical stage of his life. For it was about this time that his ambition became more clearly defined. He desired to serve his people in some public capacity. He felt their disabilities and suffered with them in their struggle to obtain a higher and a more useful life. His real and his earnestness was passionately recognised by his fellows who came to love him so truly as he had completely devoted himself to their interests. They had seen him take a manly stand for their life and interest in the terrible crises connected with the Bubonic Plague. In this most trying time of sorrow and distressed he proved to them the sincerity of his love for them and that manly courage which all races so commonly admire and worship. Mangena will have it clearly understood and known the fact that from the very beginning of his life the English people have been among the very best of his friends. From them he has obtained the indispensable and most invaluable inspiration and help. He and ourselves believe that the natives of South Africa should  cultivate true friendly relations with their white neighbors. Their destiny is one and the same---they most grievously err who try to divide them. He came to England in August 1902. His purpose being to study law with the view of returning to his people to serve them in the capacity of a constitutional lawyer. Because he with us believe that the constitution and not the revolution contains for us the only open door to progress and to prosperity. Here in England he has devoted himself most earnestly to the study of law. To this end he applied himself with the most undivided attention until the painful events of 1906 forced him to public notice much against his election. Once again Mangena demonstrated, this time to the whole of England that type of manly courage which men of his race so conspicuously possess. Here I mean moral courage that governing virtue without which no life can become great.
                ‘Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand
                                  alone
                ‘Dare to make your purpose firm,
                                  and
                ‘Dare to make it known.
This and the same spirit has been displayed by the great men and women of every age and it is the guiding force to great men and women of to-day. The Zulus may well glory that among their number too some are found who so conspicuously display it. I need not repeat here the story which you all know it even by heart. For it is a fact most dear to us that he offered himself a living sacrifice to us. Deception and cowardice have in vain hurled their satanic fury into the way of this helpless youth but we know that the true men and women of all nations have not yet stooped to crash the weak neither will they close their hearts against the sufferings of the world. In 1906 Mangena stood before the highest court in this realm truly with a grievously wounded heart and all for the sake of his people. But as I have said this story is already your precious possession and I dare not disturb it. After many struggles and after overcoming the most powerful resistance Mangena has at last reached the topmost bough in his climbing career. On July 1st, 1908, having passed all examinations, he was called by the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn to become Barrister-at-Law. Hats off for Alfred Mangena of Lincoln Inn Esquire and Barrister-at-Law” (“Alfred Mangena Of Lincoln’s Inn: Esquire and Barrister-at-Law”, Ilanga lase Natal, August 14, 1908). This document is important for several reasons, besides it being a portrait of one New African intellectual by another New African intellectual. First, when Seme writes of “he and ourselves” he alludes to a collective expression, which with time came to known as the New African Movement. Secondly, the Movement was committed to the ‘Regeneration of Africa’; an expression which was borrowed from the African American intellectuals of the nineteenth-century such as Martin Delany and Alexander Crummell, designating that a New Africa must be brought by means of the historical forces of Christianity, education and civilization. Thirdly, Seme mentions that the New African Movement was engaged with bringing about “progress and prosperity”. In other words, it aligned itself with the historical forces of modernity.  Fourthly, the New African Movement sought to bring modernity into being through constitutional means and not through revolutionary instruments. This belief in constitutionalism  shows the conservative nature of the New African Movement. Fifthly, a unifying perspective representing the interests of the African people should be articulated: this was the founding moment of African Nationalism. Agreeing on all these critical issues in 1908, it is clear that the path was clear for Alfred Mangena and Pixley ka Isaka Seme and other New Africans of the New African Movement to found the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912; Mangena became the first Treasury-General of the organization. From this unity in ideological perspective of 1908, Mangena and Seme were to found a law practice together in 1916. In the early 1940s, two decades after the death of Alfred Mangena, Anton Lembede was to article himself under the guidance of Pixley ka Isaka Seme.  There is a profound line of continuity between the African Nationalism of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Alfred Mangena, John Dube, Allan Kirkland Soga and others to the New African Nationalism of Anton Lembede, Jordan Kush Ngubane, Nelson Mandela, A. P. Mda, Walter Sisulu and others (that is, membership of the ANC Youth League). As Pixley ka Isaka Seme alludes in this sketch, Mangena had serious heart problems. Mangena’s death in 1924 was as shocking to the first generation of the New African Movement, as the death of Anton Lembede in 1947 was to be nearly debilitating to the third generation of the New African Movement.  Two obituaries, one by D. D. T. Jabavu in Imvo Zabantsundu and the other by Pixley ka Isaka Seme in Ilanga lase Natal, convey the deep sense of loss and grieve felt within the New African Movement. On the death his father, John Tengo Jabavu, in 1921, D. D. T. Jabavu sought to make Imvo Zabantsundu what it had been in the first four years of its founding, from 1884 to 1888: an intellectual forum which expressed the interests of the newly emergent African intelligentsia. In fact, in these four years John Tengo Jabavu himself, as founder and editor of the newspaper, had made it a vehicle of the Xhosa Cultural Renascence. Thereafter John Tengo Jabavu degraded Imvo Zabantsundu into a whoring forum articulating the interests of the white ruling classes. Written in Xhosa, D. D. T. Jabavu obituary reiterates many of the things mentioned earlier by Pixley ka Isaka Seme (“Umfi Adv. Alfred Mangena”, Imvo Zabantsundu, September 30, 1924). This was in and of itself very progressive, because his father had forbidden any mention of the ANC in the newspaper due to the conflicts he had with the first generation of the New African intellectuals. Concerning Pixley ka Isaka Seme’s obituary note, written to  Mrs. A. Vic Mangena, the widow, it is best to quote it in full: “It is my duty and great pain to write you this note of condolence. I received your letter after I had just got the sad news from Kingwilliamstown. It was a very severe shock. We never thought he would be cut down so early in life. However short his work may have been, he certainly delivered to South Africa a high and new message for the budding Native life and inspiration. He determined once and for all the idea that the Natives of this country were destined for ever to be hewers of wood and carriers of water. Advocate Mangena was born leader of men. He was a man of great courage and who nourished a greater love for his country, for which he felt that no sacrifice would ever be too great. I mourn his sudden death, and I am sure that the heart of all his people is deeply wounded by this blow. May his soul rest inpiece as surely as his name takes its just place in final history: Alfred Mangena, of the Honourable Society of Lincoln Inn, Esquire and Barrister-at-Law, the first Native of South Africa to win for us those high honours. Alfred Mangena lived under the shadows of the beatific vision of a FREE AFRICA, in which he and all his countrymen would be free from the demon of discriminating injustice and prejudice, free from the base and contemptible political jugglery and cupidity of this day---tergiversation in word and dead---in a word he dared and dreamed of the day when ‘Ethiopia shall lift up her hands unto God and when princes shall come out of Egypt’. Finally now as senior of the Native Bar in South Africa, through his death, I beg to extend to you his widow, and all your family our great grief and the deepest sympathy of all the other members of the Native Bar in your bereavement, for we all held him in the very highest esteem. His death is a great loss to us and you, but it is a greater loss to the race and to the country. Therefore I hope that you will permit this note to receive a wider circulation through the papers to all his friends and ours. In conclusion, as Solicitor General for the Swazi Nation I am commended by SOBHUZA II, King and Paramount Chief and the Queen to say that they entirely associate themselves with the notes of sympathy expressed herein-above” (“A Tribute to the Late Alfred Mangena: Written to A. Mangena’s Widow and at Her Request Thus Published”, Ilanga lase Natal, November 28, 1924). Thirty-seven years after his death in 1961, Z. K. Matthews, one of the outstanding New African intellectuals, was to memorialize him with the following acute observations in his Our Heritage Series (June 3-November 21, 1961): “One of the difficulties confronting educated Africans in South Africa is that of a choice of career. When a white young man is considering his life’s work, he has the whole wide world to choose from for a career. He can enter any profession he wishes as long as he has the ability to acquire the necessary qualifications. Not so with the African young man. The choice before him is very limited. For many a long year such a young man had only two choices open to him, either to preach or to teach---to enter the teaching profession or the ministry of the Church. These are noble professions but goodness knows not every African has neither the inclination nor the necessary ability. No wonder many who have for want of an alternative entered these professions have made a mess of them. For that reason great credit must be given to those who have broken away from the easy road and have decided to blaze a new trail, to break new ground, to start on entirely new careers not previously entered by their fellow Africans. One of the men to whom such honour must go is Advocate Alfred Mangena. . . . Today, when the number of Africans in the legal profession is steadily increasing, it is well for us to do honour to the man who led the way” (“Advocate Alfred Mangena”, Imvo Zabantsundu, November 18, 1961). The tradition of being a New African Advocate, established by Alfred Mangena, in the early part of the twentieth-century, was continued by another great man in the middle of the century: Nelson Mandela. It is a very venerable tradition in South African political history: a tradition made possible by New Africanism.