It is extremely unfortunate that James Calata is not known in South African political history as he deserves to be because he was one of the two key figures who in a serious sense brought the ANC into the modern age as Secretary-General of the organization from 1936 to 1949. From its moribund years in the 1930s, by re-organizing the structures of the organization, regionally and nationally, through the imperatives and dictates of modernity, Calata made it possible for the ANC to achieve its great political manifestations of the 1950s. Like most members of the New African Movement Calata believed that Christianity and education were the essential entry-ways into modernity. As a priest in the Anglican church, he believed that political oppression, economic exploitation and racism were hindrances and obstacles to the deeper realization of Christianity in South Africa. Given these political blockages, he made it his mission to overcome and destroy them through his peraxis within the ANC. The paradox of Calata is that while his organizational skills were revolutionary, his political consciousness was conservative. Although he endorsed the 1949 Programme of Action formulated by the ANC Youth League, his conservatism, like that of many Old New Africans, was becoming more and more an obstacle to the new challenges, especially since 1948, which were facing the African people. Although after 1949, he was no longer in a central position in determining policy, he continued to work deligently for the organization. This was in marked contrast to his ability to effect revolutionary transformations within the ANC from the time of assuming his responsibilities in 1936. In fact, with legitimacy one could say for a few years in the late 1930s, he constituted the power center of the organization. Within a year of becoming the Secretary-General, in 1937 he initiated the removal of Pixley ka Isaka Seme as President because of his unfocused attention to the organization. Seme was replaced by Z. R. Mahabane, who for the second time was assuming the presidency. In 1940 Calata also initiated the removal of Mahabane. At this time the ANC was practically non-function, in effect having been surpassed by the All African Convention, which from the time of its emergence in 1936 in opposition to the Hertzog Bills gained enormous prestige. At this time many New African political leaders were members of both organizations. Calata's stroke of political genius, which has had lasting effect on the political fortunes of the African people in South Africa in the twentieth-century, was to persuade Dr. Alfred B. Xuma to put all his political allegiances in the ANC. This was part of Calata's strategey to revitalize and reinvigorate the organization. In 1940 James Calata persuaded the ANC to elect Afred B. Xuma as its President-General. Upon the election of Xuma in December of that year, they conjointly initiated a historic project that completely revolutionized the ANC in a democratic and modernistic direction. Inspired by the philosophy of his mentor Booker T. Washington, Xuma saw as his fundamental task the making of the ANC a completely self-reliant modern organization and instrument of modernity. In this extraordinary task, he succeeded. First, he paid from his own private economic funds, relatively enormous since he was a medical doctor, the financial claims of the former ANC presidents, Pixley ka Isaka Seme and Z. R. Mahabane, against the organization. Secondly, together with Calata, Xuma expanded the base of the organization by including many women and the youth. Thirdly, they toured the country, at Xuma's personal expense, making speeches articulating the new outlook and tasks of the organization. Lastly, they revived the four provincial (Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal) branches of the ANC by settling intercenine disputes and streamlining their tasks. A recent Stanford University dissertation delineates the historic role of James Calata at this moment within the ANC: "The ANC's revival in the early 1940s owed itself as much to James Calata as it did to Xuma. As the Congress's secretary general since 1936, Calata proved to be a loyal, tireless organizer unswervingly committed to Xuma and the cause of African political advancement. Calata, two years Xuma's junior, worked as an Anglican clergyman in Cradock in the eastern Cape. He and Xuma quickly struck up a friendship and became the ANC's top political partners. Throughout Xuma's tenure as ANC president, Calata regularly kept Xuma abreast of political developments both inside and outside of the ANC. His correspondence provided Xumawith a mixture of advice, appraisal. encouragement, and support. Typical was a letter from Calata in November 1942. In it he both informed Xuma of the preparations underway for the upcoming ANC conference and offered advice on appropriate topics for Xuma's presidential address. He suggested that Xuma discuss the Atlantic Charter's relevance for South Africa, an issue that would be crucial in shaping the ANC's political stance in the coming years. In his typically self-effacing manner, Calata assured Xuma that 'I am not trying to dictate to my President but just reminding you of some of those questions which are likely to be of interest at the present time.' Xuma clearly valued Calata'advice and fully appreciated the benefits of this extraordinary partnership. With Calata's long-term planning skills and Xuma's vigorous new leadership, the ANC would re-establish itself as a major player in black South African politics in the 1940s" (Steven Gish, Alfred B. Xuma, 1893-1962: African, American, South African, 1994, p.177-8). Xuma took the suggestions of Calata in earnest that he eventually  wrote an important document called: The Atlantic Charter And The Africans (December 1945). This communication from Calata to the African people about the historical necessity in supporting the ANC, which appeared in Inkundla ya Bantu, shows why Xuma had profound trust  in the political imagination of the Secretary-general: ". . . . we are living at an age when the African is called upon to make serious decisions about his own future. as a race we shall live or die according to the decisions we make now. It is no joke to say we are entering upon a ne world. Paper resolutions ehich are shoved in shelf corners by Government officials and forgotten after they have been read have failed to bring us freedom. We want freedom in the land of our birth our native land. There is no need to look to other countries to help us to get that freedom. We have the African National Congress, our own organisation, the mouth piece of the African to the Government. . . . Have you any real reason why you prefer to see your nation under the feet of others, instead of helping to raise it up by becoming a member of this national movement and participating in its councils. What are you afraid of? Please see that your town or your district is organised and is represented at this conference. Dono't depend on newspaper reports for your information. Be there yourself and contribute to the discussion. It may be that your advice is just what will put us all along right lines. Whether you are known as an agitator or a puppet please see that your branch sends you to Bloemfontein if you have a contribution to make. We cannot remain where we were before the last war, otherwise what did we fight for? We fought for freedom of speech,  freedom of movement, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Let us continue to fight if these are denied to us. We have the leadership. All we need is solid organisation and loyalty behind it. Come, unite under the banner of the African National Congress and give our leaders a chance to show us what they can do" ("Task For the A. N. Congress", Second Fortnight, September 1946). However in the late 19040s the Senior Leadership of the organization was under unrelenting criticism from the Youth League, as can be noted in this blistering intervention by a Youth Leaguer Jordan Ngubane, then editor of Inkundla ya Bantu (which was in fact a forum of the Youth League): "For those who still want to be convinced that unprincipled political forces direct our policies in many fields to-day, the statement by Rev. James A. Calata to the annual conference of the Cape Congress that we should wait and see what the Government does before we continue our fight for freedom cannot be improved upon. It explains very clearly the thesis that we have always propounded in this column, that Congress, as at present organised is a shapeless mass of opportunism and unprincipled nationalism; a haven for all soerts of people---the intellectually lazy fellows, who slog along with ideas that were alright for the times of Louis Botha in 1912 (when the Congress was founded); the mountbanks who find in Congress an excellent platform from which they might be reflected as national figures; the honest, but misguided men and women who believe that Africa has mission for the world, but who have not made up their minds what is is clearly; and, ofcourse, that queer assortment of gentlemen who will not take a decision on any vital matter, involving trouble---the people who hold away from our people our freedom. Mr. Calata told the Cape Congress, od which he is President that Africans should wait and see before they decided on their next course of action. In plain words, Mr. Calata says that since the 'Bosses' have not aimed the boot at the African, then the African should fold his hands, sit down, pray and thank God that the kick has been delayed" ("Really Mr. Calata", Kanyisa [Jordan K. Ngubane], Comments on Events, Inkundla ya Bantu, August 28, 1948). Such was the tone of the ANC Youth League against the Old Guard on the eve of their take-over of the national organisation in 1949-50. What partly accounts for the vehemence of Ngubane's tone is that the National Party had just won the 1948 elections which gave them the mandate to institute Apartheid as an official government policy. Although from 1949 he was no longer a central force in the ANC, James Calata continued to be active: during the Defiance Campaign of 1952, he was banned; he was also an active participant in the political manifestations of 1960 that led to the banning of the ANC. James Calata was truly a historic figure who should not be allowed to disappear from the pages of South African history.