Although Abner R. Mapanya was not a major intellectual voice or a major political figure in his own right within the constellation of the New African Movement, as editor of Umteteli wa Bantu from the early 1920s right through the departure of R. V. Selope Thema in 1932  to assume the editorialship of the newly established Bantu World, he presided over a pleiad of brilliant intellectuals who were contributors to the newspaper: H. I. E. Dhlomo, Solomon T. Plaatje, Allan Kirkland Soga, H. Selby Msimang, S. M. Bennett Ncwana, H. Selby Msimang, Mark S. Radebe and others. That Mapanya was able retain the contributions of this group of New African intelligentsia for so long perhaps bespeaks to his brilliance as an editor in establishing an atmosphere of wonderful collegiality. But strangely enough none of them in their unfortunately few autobiographical sketches or memoirs have said anything about Abner R. Mapanya. Neither in the voluminous writings of H. I. E. Dhlomo in Ilanga lase Natal from 1943 to 1954 (there are many intellectual and cultural portraits of intellectuals), nor in R. V. Selope Thema unpublished autobiography Out of Darkness: From Cattle-Herding to the Editor’s Chair (1935), is there a portrait of him. But there is indirect high praise of Mapanya’s editorial policy and its high standards by Dhlomo in his review of the highlights in the newspaper in the year of 1930: “The outstanding feature of the pages is the masterly editorials which should be read carefully by all students of the African Race Problem. The lead writer is not biased or partial in his views; his language is rich, flowing, colourful and well-chosen; his ideas and thoughts are sound and refreshing; his proposals and criticisms constructive. In short, the editorials are scholastic and literary. It would be interesting and valuable to put some of these into pamphlet form. The work is a good influence and a fine example of Bantu journalism---a subject upon which I would like to devote an entire article. In fact the phenomenal growth of this paper---its influence, circulation and high standing---is due to its excellent leaders and management, and to the broad policy which can be made broader still by encouraging other than serious and political journalism. . . . It would be extremely unfair to close this review without passing a word of praise and admiration to Mr. R. V. Selope Thema for his interesting and constructive articles” (“Through Umteteli’s Pages: A Review of 1930”, Umteteli wa Bantu, January 3, 1931). That Abner Mapanya was still editor of the newspaper at this time is indicated by a huge photograph of the editor and fourteen staff members (including H. I. E. Dhlomo himself, H. Selby Msimang, Richard W. Msimang) under the caption: Greetings: From the Editor and Staff on the Occasion of Umteteli’s Tenth Birthday (May 10, 1930). The formidable intellectual figure on the pages of Umteteli wa Bantu in the decade of the 1920s as this homage clearly shows was R. V. Selope Thema who was then theorizing the construction of modernity. Not only did Selope Thema dazzle the New African intellectuals of Dhlomo’s generation, but also of younger generations such as Jordan Kush Ngubane. Having worked as an editorial assistant to Selope Thema in Bantu World in the 1930s, Ngubane was in a position to make this remarkable estimation of his mentor and master in his earlier days on the pages of Umteteli wa Bantu: “Young Thema insisted and taught that we should learn from these failures [of Old Africans] and meet the whiteman’s organisation of his minority with our organisation of our majority. In the united action of the entire African community, he saw the only hope for his race. He preached this doctrine extensively from the time when he entered politics, clung to it through the bitterest times, when Africans were divided racially in the latter twentiesw of this century and to this day preaches it with unsagging zeal. His writings which have come down to us are drawn from the first ten years of Hertzog’s rule, when African intellectuals took a leading part in discussing the problems of their people. . . . In his writings, he wrote lucidly, clearly and to the point. He took part in nearly all the stirring political controversies which shook the African community between the years 1924 and 1939. . . . His writings today certainly reveal very little of the brilliant journalist who made and pulled down Congress Presidents for a quarter of a century. They have lost their virility, nationalistic force and are not, one might add, very convincing. No longer does Mr. Thema write to give a lead to stir his readers into thinking. . . . There is neither disintegration nor decadence behind this; but a grievous national tragedy. Men of Mr. Thema’s intellectual strength do not just crumble down into nothing, nor do their thoughts and philosophies fade into the limbo of forgotten things. These men built nations and shape history and live throughout time. I write this to emphasize the depth of the tragedy behind Mr. Thema’s watered-down writings” (“Three Famous African Journalists I Knew: III Richard Victor Selope Thema”, Inkundla ya Bantu, Second Fortnight, July 1946). One cannot easily recall such a seminal and historic appraisal of a New African intellectual by another New African intellectual within the New African Movement, except perhaps H. I. E. Dhlomo’s obituaries of Solomon T. Plaatje in 1932 and that of John Langalibelele Dube in 1946, or Ngubane’s own obituary of Pixley ka Isaka Seme in 1951. What is so extraordinary about Ngubane’s appraisal of 1946, is that it has been wholeheartedly endorsed by posterity. In other words, it was R. V. Selope Thema at the height of his intellectual powers who made Umteteli wa Bantu the great newspaper it was in the decade of the 1920s. This uplifting of the newspaper also gave greater heights to the editorial vision of Abner R. Mapunya.