James Thaele is one of the New African intellectuals who had a direct experience of New Negro modernity: in this he is similar to Charlotte Manye Maxeke, John Langalibalele Dube, Marshall Maxeke, Alfred B. Xuma, Pixley ka Isaka Seme and others. All of them were students at American universities, especially at historically black institutions. In as much as Charlotte Manye Maxeke encountered W. E. B. Du Bois as teacher at Wilberforce University, James Thaele, in a similar situation, encountered James Weldon Johnson as a mentor at Lincoln University. Thaele studied at Lincoln and at other black institutions for a decade between 1913 and 1923. The decade of the 1920s was the era of the Harlem Renaissance in American cultural history. In some way Thaele was touched by this great cultural efflorescence, not only through Johnson who was one of the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance, but by way of the political philosophy of Garveyism, which Thaele sought to transplant into South Africa upon his return. In other words, James Thaele was more in synchrony with one of the great political practices of the Harlem Renaissance rather than its complex form of its cultural practices. It was rather with one aspect of the politics of the Harlem Renaissance that James Thaele was fascinated with, rather than its cultural products. In this, Thaele was unique within the New African Movement. Whereas most, if not all, leading members of the New African intelligentsia were hostile to Garveyism, James Thaele became its ideologue in South Africa. James Thaele was central in the unity of New Negro modernity and New African modernity. Upon his return to South Africa, one of his earliest writings was a short essay in The Workers’ Herald, the ideological and intellectual forum of Clements Kadalie’s Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, in which Thaele attempted to shift the perception of Christianity with white nationalism to that of identifying Christianity with black nationalism: “It is this church which, in the Grondwet of the Republics of Transvaal and Free State not long ago, stated that there was to be no equality in church or state between the Blacks and whites. And recently, if you choose, the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape has introduced segregation into church matters. This then, is the body that has taken the initiative in this hypocrisy. . . . I am appealing to the racial consciousness of the radical aboriginal to use all the means to rouse the African race to wake from their long sleep of many decades. The voice of posterity is calling upon us men to play our part, and play it nobly. Law and authority must be respected, even as we did before the aliens came here; but when those in authority become so unreasonably notorious at your expense, disregard that authority, be blind and ‘damn the consequences.’ . . . The Blacks have got to be told by students of theological thought that in the cosmogonies of Moses, or of Biblical history, we find the Prophet Isaiah breathing politics. The fundamental maxims of his statesmanship come first into the limelight in the crisis of the Syro-Epraimitic invasion; in that memorable interview with Ahaz (recorded, Isaiah, chapter 7) is nothing but politics sane and sound. Space will not allow me to enter into Biblical exegisis of this matter as I would like to do. It is a disgraceful public confession of the worst kind I have ever heard or read of. Politics is the science and art of government, the study of the state, its life and its conduct. Whether looked on as a field of study or as a field of practical endeavour, politics is a noble sphere of manly thought, energy and enterprise. Education in politics is not chiefly a question of knowledge; it is a question of character” (“Christianity, Basis of Native Policy?”, The Workers’ Herald, December 21, 1923). It was this admixture of Christianity and Garveyism that James Thaele sought to institutionalize as the ideology of the African National Congress (ANC). This he attempted to do as president of the ANC in the Cape Province in the 1920s and in the 1930s. To his lasting credit, Thaele organized a formidable political organization at the provincial level. But when he attempted to make his fiefdom, separate from the national body of the ANC, he was unrelenting opposed by James Calata, the secretary-general of the ANC national organization, as well as by its general-president, Z. R. Mahabane. Eventually, he was deposed by both men in the late 1930s. Although through his newspaper, The African World (echoing Marcus Garvey’s The Negro World), James Thaele was successful in transplanting the ideology of Garveyism largely in the Cape Province, he was opposed by the ‘national’ newspapers of the New African Movement: Imvo Zabantsundu (located in King William’s Town), Ilanga lase Natal (located in Durban) and Umteteli wa Bantu (located in Johannesburg). It was perhaps James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a Ghanian member of the Phelps-Stokes Commission, who had a tremendous impact on many members of the New African Movement, who reinforced the anti-Garveyism of these newspapers. Aggrey’s three-month stay in South Africa, investigating educational matters concerning Africans in 1921, coincided with the return of James Thaele from United States in 1923. Although they did not cross paths in South Africa, they must have known each other in United States. Aggrey and Thaele could be seen as symbolizing the struggle between anti-Garveyism and Garveyism in South Africa. In its first of several reports on the visit of Aggrey, Umteteli wa Bantu noted: “Dr. Aggrey is a strong advocate of racial co-operation, and a great believer in the dgnity of labour. He refers to the American Negro ‘Back to Africa’ movement in uncomplementary terms, and derides the threat to send a black army to invade South Africa and turn out all the whites. . . . Referring to Marcus Garvey and his association he warns us: ‘If you send money to these fool men then you are the bigger fools. They are making money out of people who have not much sense. Stop the talk about the Americans; they are not coming’” (“A Notable Visitor”, April 9, 1921). In unison with James Aggrey, Umteteli wa Bantu published the same anonymous article on two occasions condemning Garveyism: “The history of these people, dating from the days when they were harried by Arab raiders and sold for slavery in the American plantations down to the present day, forms an unbroken story of oppression and distress, and our hearts respond to their intense yearning for the fullest freedom which their emancipation failed to confer. We can dismiss the perfervid utterances of Mr. Marcus Garvey. Under the Stars and Stripes the negro enjoys a status, both political and industrial, which we are now striving to attain, and his average standard of life is far higher than ours. We do not believe that the individual negro nourishes so great an antipathy to the European as Mr. Garvey’s  speech suggests, and we prefer to view that gentleman as a demagogue who deliberately influences racial feeling to serve his own ends. . . . We are justified in declining to attach any sort of importance to Mr. Garvey’s ravings of an All-Black Africa, but we have reason to believe that there exists a real and widespread desire among American negroesto make a home in Africa, and that the ‘Back to Africa’ movement will probably stimulate emigration to this country” (“An ‘All-Black Africa’”, Umteteli wa Bantu, July 9, 1921). A clear indication of the position of the other newspaper which was in opposition to Garveyism in support of Aggrey, is the publication by Ilanga lase Natal of an address given by Aggrey to the Detroit National Methodist Conference approximately a year after his visit to South Africa. Aggrey said among other things: “We, of Africa, and of African descent, for whom the missionaries have toiled and died, are determined to make the world know that if you give us a chance, we will give you our hand and bring Africa to the feet of the cross. We don’t want you to do all of it for us. We want you to come to us and let us help you. That is the appeal of Africa to America. You have given us a chance upon the railroads of this country and we laid the tracks for you. You have given us a chance on the rivers and we have bridged them for you. . . . Now, Africa, for 300 years has been knocking at the door: ‘Give us a chance. Send your best. Give us a chance.’ It isn’t you who have given the challenge to Africa, it is Africa throwing the challenge for 300 years, and I am wondering if you are answering the challenge that has been given. That is my message from Africa” (“Human Need in Africa”, Ilanga lase Natal, February 10, 1922). From this statement by Aggrey we can extrapolate why the majority of the New African intelligentsia were hostile to Garveyism: it was too much like Ethiopianism, which the leading lights of the New African Movement opposed. They were both perceived as virulent forms of black nationalism. While the New African Movement invented African Nationalism in order to construct political modernity in South Africa through the ANC, it felt that black nationalism would debilitate such a historical undertaking. It can only bespeak to the tremendous determination of James Thaele that despite the opposition to his political perspective by all the leading organs and figures of the New African Movement, he never altered or changed his allegiance to Garveyism. Although he was politically defeated by the members of his elite class, he was successfully resisted their attempt to break him ideologically. This testifies to his indomitable will.