JOHN LANGALIBALELE DUBE

John Langalibalele Dube 

by

Jordan Ngubane 

We buried Dr. John Langalibalele Dube on Wednesday, February 13, 1946 within the campus of his Ohlange Institute. The occasion was significant and symbolic. Significant because after fifty years cause of the African, Mafukuzela had found his last resting place among the timeless monuments for himself and his people in his lifetime; significant because in acknowledgment of his unequalled contribution to his people. Natal's best African brains and leading figures in many spheres gathered in their number one of the greatest sons Africa had given the world of his life's greatest achievement fifty years of unbroken service to the monuments he had built unconsciously contributions to the advancement of the numbers to pay their last respects to him.

The occasion was symbolic because it marked the supreme climax in the life of Doctor the Reverend John Langalibalele Dube—to millions of his people, plain Jani Dube—when every section of the Union 's population came to testify to the Universality of his leadership. I saw Shembe's Nazarenes, pious and dignified in their flowing white robes, treading with bared feet the ground they regarded sacred because it was to contain the last remains of a great African; there were Zulus drawn from every walk of life; there were Xhosas, Basutho, Blantyres, Baganda; there were Frenchmen, Englishmen, Jews, Afrikaners and Indians, all assembled to proclaim by their presence that his influence transcended the barriers of race, creed and social status; all assembled to plant, in the stirring word of Dr. Iones B. Gumede, the seek of united nationhood. And then, there was the service itself, conducted inside the Industrial Hall with great simplicity by the grey haired quiet voiced Rev. N.M. Nduli, a lifelong disciple of the sage of Ohlange. At the graveside, Durban 's grief struck Rev. R.M. Ngcobo, officiated. If in the conducting of the service the national aspect of his work was not emphasized, it was at least fit and proper that these two American Board colleagues, with whom the deceased had started work in life, should direct proceedings on this day.

Testimonies flowed from Black and White in one continuous stream of heartfelt praise; from Miss Lavinia Scott, Dr. Dube's neighbor and principal of Inanda Seminary for girls; from Dr. Alen B. Taylor, Superintendent of the McCord Zulu Hospital, which had pioneered Nursing among the Zulus; from Rev. Abner S. Ntimkulu, Malukuzela's right-hand man; from Cr. Lancelot P. Msomi, representing Ohlange's Old Boys; from Headmaster A.T. Habedi, B.A., the young man who had practically borne the school on his shoulders throughout the time when Dr. Dube was ill; from Mr. W.T. Clark, Mafukuzela's life-long friend and adviser; from Mature Mntwana Pika kaSiteku kaMpande who proclaimed Dr. Dube a Zulu hero. One thought the last word had been said, but still tributes irresistibly poured forth. They came from Rev. M.S. Seme, now retired, who had seen Dr. Dube start his work at Ohlange; from Cr. Allison W.G. Champion, President of the African National Congress ( Natal ), a body Dr. Dube helped to found in 1912. Cr. Champion acknowledged the uniqueness of Dr. Dube's service to the nation with the words: “Let us start where Dr. Dube stopped and go forward.”

Hundreds packed the Industrial Hall, the last building set-up by Mafukuzela before he died, but greater numbers waited in stony and reverent silence outside ht great edifice.

When the ceremony inside the house was concluded, the great mass of mourning humanity streamed out, followed by the coffin, on which lay folded Mafukuzela's Doctor of Philosophy attire. It was borne into the hearse by African clergymen. A little behind the Industrial Building , on a lawn from which one gained a commanding view of Ohlange, they laid the coffin down and gave more time for tributes to be paid.

Death had brought out the full stature of the man in the eyes of his country. I shall not forget the ringing sincerity of the Chairman of the Natal District of the Methodist Church , the Rev. S. LeGrove Smith, who hailed the deceased as one of the most outstanding men among all races in the Union and one of the greatest sons the Zulus had produced. The mixed gathering, continued Mr. Smith, had fathered to pay tribute to one of South Africa 's greatest men, a nation builder who, measured by all human standards, was a great man.

Further testimonies came from the Right Rev. Lucas M. Makoba, President of the African Congregational Church; from one of Dr. Dube's Indian friends, whose haggling Zulu was no handicap when he expressed what he felt in his heart; from Chief Mandlakayise of the Qadi tribe; from Rev. M.J. Mpanza, President of the Natal Bantu Ministers Association—but the most thought-provoking came from Dr. Innes B. Gumrede, another young man and one of Dr. Dube's closest friends, to whom the interment of the deceased's remains symbolized the planting of a tree around which a great nation would grow.

Dr. Dube's achievement had been a continuous and shining source of inspiration to his young countrymen, said the Doctor. And, with characteristic love for the classics, he emphasized that when talking of Dr. Dube's works, we might, with the old Roman's say: “If you want to see the work he has done, look around at these statues.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that God loves Africa ; else he would not have given us a man like Dr. Dube,” said Dr. Gumede.

Last to speak was the brother of the deceased, Mr. Charles L. Dube, B.A., who told a most human story of the days when he and Mafukuzela were boys, when their hard-working mother made enormous sacrifice to educate his brothers and sisters. He spoke on behalf of the Dube family.

Then the students of Inanda Seminary sang, moving men and women to tears. Wreaths were piled around the grave; the coffin was opened; we set our eyes for the last time on one to whom we owed so much; there he was, in the inanimate stillness of death.

Thousands flocked to glance their last on him. Then the lid was screwed on the coffin; the coffin was lowered down, six feet below the earth, on the side of a hill a little above Ohlange Institute. And there, keeping eternal vigil over Ohlange, lies John Langalibalele Dube.

John Langalibalele Dube was born about 75 years ago at Inanda, being one of Rev. James Dube's nine children. Mr. Dube had been one of the first African clergymen to be ordained in the ministry of the American Board Mission. He died early, leaving his children under the care of their mother who worked hard to educate all of them, sending three to the United States for further study. One of those was Mr. Charles Dube, the last born in the family and the most illustrious of them all was John Dube.

On his return he practiced as a minister at the Inanda Mission for a number of years. But this did not provide adequate scope for his zeal to enlighten his people and he kept all his energies towards establishing a school very much along the lines followed by Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. Ohlange Institute was the result. That was in 1902.

While in the United States he had come in contact with the Negro Press and had learnt to appreciate it potentialities as an instrument of mass education. In 1904, he founded the Ilanga lase Natal . For a number of years he combined the duties of college principal with those of editor. At the same time he realized that it was no use training people while the policies of the country forced them to make little or no use of their acquired skill. The cure for this lay in a change of policy on the part of the Government and he flung himself with characteristic energy into the job of educating the rulers on the needs of the African people. His activities raised a howl of desecration from certain whitemen who squealed that he was a “spoilt Native” because he had been overseas and wanted to put wrong ideas into the heads of the African people. And on many occasions the authorities put him behind prison bars.

In 1912, Dr. P. kaI. Seme, a Zulu barrister recently returned from the United States , addressed a nationwide appeal to the leaders of the nation in every province to meet in Bloemfontein where they would formulate plans for a united front against oppression. The outcome of that gathering was the formation of the African National Congress and in recognition of his splendid fight for African freedom, Dr. Dube was elected its first President.

From that time onwards, he played an increasingly important part in national affairs, leading deputations to England to protest, for example, against the Land Act of 1913.

By 1915, his responsibilities were already too heavy and he invited Mr. Ngazana Luthuli, then a teacher at Adams College , to come over and edit the Ilanga lase Natal in succession to Mr. Sikweleti Nyongwana, who had done some pioneering work in the field of African journalism. This started one of the most beautiful friendships in Zulu public affairs within the last forty years. Mr. Luthuli was absolutely loyal to Dr. Dube; he worked the Ilanga lase Natal for about 27 years, and among men who stood faithfully by Dr. Dube through thick and thin in his fight for African liberation, Mr. Ngazana Luthuli stands out as the most eminent. Whenever Dr. Dube went overseas, Mr. Luthuli ran the paper as well as directed the school. The bonds between the two men remained strong and unsevered to the end when Dr. Dube died. Though it is said in no spirit of criticism at all—I missed old man Luthuli's testimony.

Between 1915 and 1935, Dr. Dube made several trips to the United States and worked untiringly to expand the work of Ohlange while continuing to take an active interest in political work. Within this period he also found time to write a book or two for his Zulus; the first being Isita Somuntu Ngu Uqobo Lwake and the second U Jeqe: Insila ka-Shaka . In 1937 the University of South Africa conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy for distinguished educational work among the Africans. In 1937, the Zulus made one of their greatest gestures of appreciating his work on their behalf; by an overwhelming majority, they elected him to be one of the first members of the Natives Representative Council in Pretoria ; this seat he held to his death.

Dr. Dube was a man of many parts; he was an educationalist, a politician, a journalist and author. In all these fields he distinguished himself, but his greatest monument will remain his work at Ohlange which stands out as the most unanswerable argument against popular fallacies and lies perpetrated against the Black man.

Though a good son of the Zulu people, Dr. Dube made an unquestionably national contribution when he set up and ran successful for nearly fifty years, Ohlange Institute. He had complete faith in his people, that is why he risked everything to establish Ohlange and his people never let him down for once. They sent their sons and later daughters to Ohlange; paid the fees and when he went through the country with choirs he received generous support from Africans. When he came before white people, his work spoke for itself and they helped him generously. So also the Indians. Ohlange is national also in the sense that all South Africans gave their bit to make the school a success.

In political life, Dr. Dube started as what the old conservatives called a radical and ended a moderate Nationalist. Like most of the leaders of his time, and many others since then, his loyalties were greater to the tribal group to which he belonged than to the whole national group. This bias was neither his fault nor that of the other leaders; all had merely inherited a certain historical situation. Before them, Cetshwayo had gone down fighting the English single-handed; Moshesh had a lot of trouble with the Boers fighting alone, while the same was true of practically every other tribal group. The fathers of the leaders of Dube's time thought in terms of tribal groups as entities; they had no acquaintance with the concept of national unity as we understand it today. Hence, when the strains and stresses consequent upon the creation of a broad African national front came upon them. Dr. Dube's contemporaries tended to retired behind their provincial or, I might say, tribal fortresses. It was the fashion of the times and Dr. Dube was no exception. What is great in him is that all this notwithstanding, he retained the leadership of Natal until his physical indisposition forced him off the political arena. There must have been outstanding and rare qualities in a man who could retain his position of leadership for fifty years in a community which was fast becoming industrialized. And that was to be found in his tenacity of purpose; he started a Congressman and ended a Congressman.

He did not play a very important part in the literary side of Journalism. Here, he was more of an administrator than anything else.

As an author, he broke virtually new ground with is novelette, U-Jeqe: Insila ka-Shaka , which approached the tribal African as a human being, with human likes and dislikes, loving, hating, suffering and conquering just like every other human being; not a miserable creature of circumstance, a mere prisoner to ignorance or to poverty. The central theme of this Dr. Dube's greatest book was that the African should be taken as a human being and not an anthropological curio or an economic phenomenon. In Dr. Dube's view, a human being and his environment were two different entities; the things to note being the individuality of the one and the universality and mutability of the other. As an educationist he gave precedence to both. The individual and his environment were of equal importance and he preferred to see progressive changes effected uniformly or one might add reciprocally in the individual and in the environment—this, to him, being the only solution to the problems of our times. This idea he tried to put into practice at Ohlange by educating the Africans while simultaneously trying to change his environment through political activity: it was this idea he tried to explain artistically in his U-Jeqe: Insila ka-Shaka .

Throughout his life he fought heroically against the notion held obstinately by the majority of white people that the African was a sub-human. Dr. Dube stoutly contested the whiteman's right to pass this judgment on the African. He went further; he proved by action that the African was as good as any other human being provided he was exposed to identical influences. Thus, Ohlange was an argument to demonstrate not only the educationability of the African, but also his organizing capacity and his ability to carve out his own destiny. In other words, Ohlange was an idea given material form. None will dispute the fact that the whole experiment has been an astounding success—to the eternal glory of Dr. Dube and the African people.

I met Dr. Dube ten years before he died—at a time when he was at the zenith of his glory when honors were being showered upon his head from his grateful Zulus from his grateful South Africa and from many other people who appreciated his work. I was introduced to him by that grand old gentleman and journalist whom I feel honored to call my master—Mr. Ngazana Luthuli. I worked in the closest touch with Dr. Dube through a very interesting period in the history of the Zulus and traveled widely with him all over the province.

If we did not agree always, I always found him a most agreeable and considerate old gentleman, ready to make allowances for the experience of age and the enthusiasm of youth. I remember the great controversy between me and the Zulu Regent on the latter's agreeing to be a member of the Natives Representative Council. Dr. Dube's approach was most broadminded while not losing sight of the actualities of the whole position. In those hectic years, I learnt to understand the man from a special point of vantage.

In paying my small tribute to the memory of a great African, I am heartened by the knowledge that in life he had great faith in the youth of Africa, the youth of his race, in us, the young man and women who still have to bear the brunt of the fight for free Africa . He understood our weaknesses, our failures and our prejudices; but nothing appealed directly to his heart than our idealism; our love of freedom; our ability to work hard and succeed amidst unique obstacles in the world; our national pride and, finally, our hopes. He would watch young men at work in the classroom, on the fields, in heated debate at political gatherings; he would watch them tear at one another like made dogs in their fight for a place of honor in their fatherland and he would smile and say, “You cannot keep down forever, a man who is determined to rise!” Throughout his life, John Langalibalele Dube strove to rise from the depths of oppression, to full citizenship. Because opposition and obstacles to him were merely problems requiring solution, he succeeded; he had enormous reserves of moral physical courage, he succeeded. He had faith in his people's ability to rise to the top; he died having that faith. As Dr. Gumede testified, he died seeing the light on the national horizon.

In life, Dr. Dube was a living example to the youth of South Africa ; now, when he has joined the company of other great sons of Africa who already belong to history, his memory will remain forever a source of inspiration to us all. He knew no fear in his fight for African freedom. We thank God for his life and example.

“John Langalibalele Dube: A Tribute”, Inkundla ya Bantu , February, First Fortnight, 1946.