KILLIE CAMPBELL

The Campbells And African Culture

by

H. I. E. Dhlomo

Amid the tumult and confusion of the war and the noise and muddle of politics, that steady and unquenchable frame of culture still shines. Culture treats of universals and fundamentals. It springs from and touches the human heart and soul. Beauty, truth, goodness, song are of the very essence of life. These things endure and are eternal---if anything is. In times of stress we are apt to forget these things, lose our sense of values, and forget the creators and patrons of art and culture. It should not be so, for, after all, we are fighting to preserve those good things and ways of life that Art, Culture and Religion have given us. Men and women who help to create, preserve our cultural products are doing great service.

In this letter we would like to mention twoi names---that of Miss Killie Campbell and her brother Mr. William Campbell.

Miss Campbell has one of the finest----perhaps the finest---private libraries of Africana. Unlike some collectors, Miss Campbell's effort is a work of love. She takes a living practical interest in her work and is never so happy as when she helps visitors and scholars in her library. The library is a paradise for all lovers of culture and literature. It contains many rare items. Books, periodicals, cuttings, letters, pictures which it would be difficult if not impossible to get today, make the mouths of scholars and writers water when they visit the library.

Miss Campbell has offered to give her library, when the time comes, to the Bantu Studies Department of the N. U. C. where, she hopes, a chair of African Studies will be created.

Mr. William Campbell has decided to donate an All African Museum to the Bantu people. The building, it is estimated will cost £12,000. It is Mr. Campbell's desire that the architect and the builders be Bantu. Pictures, sculpture, and all collections will be by Africans. Already one of our local painters, Mr. Gerald Bhengu, has been harnessed.

For these contributions to Bantu culture at a time when Africans who want to express themselves labour under conditions of oppression, abject poverty, frustration and ridicule, we thank the Campbells . We close by quoting the African poet: “To think that kingdoms great have come and gone! Great heroes flared up but to a cold black-out! Mighty events into oblivion crushed but woman mute suckling her young; this sod of soil upturned the drunken lazy homely fires, this tree that ne'er to anything aspired; these hoary insubstantial things, as Love and Laughter, Beauty and sweet song, still go on undisturbed; disturbed, still are, and will remain, defying all the fury and the quake of War, Disaster, Greed, Ambition, Power. . . . . . . . . . .

That is culture!