In the first sixty years of its existence from the moment of its founding in 1903 Ilanga lase Natal had four editors: the founding editor John Langalibalele Dube from 1903 to approximately 1913; Sikweletu Nyongwane from 1913 to 1915; Ngazana Luthuli from 1915 to 1943; R. R. R. Dhlomo from 1943 to 1962. Each of them had their particular achievements during each singular tenure. Dube's tenure laid the political foundations of the historical transformation of Zulu Nationalism into African Nationalism. Nyongwane was principally preoccupied with the tragic consequences of the Natives Land Act of 1913; Luthuli laid the intellectual foundations of the Zulu intellectual and cultural renascence of the 1920s and the 1930s; and R. R. R. Dhlomo by invitation his younger brother H. I. E. Dhlomo from Johannesburg to be his assistant in Durban assured the making and productivity one of the greatest intellectual voices in South Africa in the twentieth-century. Ngazana Luthuli in Ilanga lase Natal seems to have given the first journalistic and cultural forums to very young intellectuals such as Benedict Wallet Vilakazi, H. I. E. Dhlomo as 'Bert', Walter Nhlapo, Jordan Ngubane as 'Jo the Cow',  and R. R. R. Dhlomo as 'Rollie Reggie', 'Rolling Stone', 'The Pessimist', 'Rollie Reggie'. It was these New African intellectuals and others in the aforementioned decades who made the astonishing cultural efflorescence in Natal. It was perhaps in recognition of such an achievement as well as paying tribute to him that Jordan Ngubane in the newspaper he was editing Inkundla ya Bantu wrote  one of the three important intellectual portraits under the heading of "Three Famous African Journalists I Knew" on Ngazana Luthuli. This is what in part Ngubane had to say of this man who is not as well known in South African intellectual history as he should be: "The subject of this article is one of the most interesting personalities in African Journalism, not so much for what he wrote, but for his very unique character. He was the embodiment of loyalty to one man the late Dr. John L. Dube, whatever he wrote, and there was a time when he wrote profusely, was a manifestation of this loyalty. . . . Mr. Luthuli was a Zulu of the older school to whom the 1879 disasters at Ulundi had left a profound imoression. This could be clearly seen in his attitude to the White people. To the Missionaries, he was the incarnation of friendliness. He personally owed all he was worth to them. Towards the other Europeans, he nursed a deep, but subdued suspicion. He did not have much faith in the ability of the African to try conclusions with the White man. Whenever people talked of organising against oppression, he would fling his arms up, as if in horror, and exclaim that Zulu power had been destroyed at Ulundi and that had been the end of the Zulu and, therefore, the African people. He believed that the policy of conciliation towards the Whites was the safest. . . . The queerest thing about Mr. Luthuli is that though he occupied the editorial chair of the Ilanga lase Natal from 1915 to 1943, through the most trying times for every leader of African opinion, he emerged soewhat unaffected by it all; his greatest contributions to the advancement of his people as a matter of fact lie lie on the cultural field than on the political. The songs he wrote for the American Board Church Hymnal are of everlasting beauty. His editorials were more of beautiful literary essays in Zulu than political directives" ("II Ngazana Luthuli", First Fortnight, July 1946). Jordan Kush Ngubane is the person in the position to know Luthuli because he worked for seven years under the guidance of the great editor, four of which beginning in 1938 as a columnist of 'Jo the Cow'. In fact, Ngubane's column replaced that of Josiah Mapumulo which had been running foe decades under the heading 'Gleanings from the by-ways of Literature'. It would seem that Ngazana Luthuli on publishing Ngubane's first contribution to Ilanga lase Natal in the form of a Zulu poem in 1937 as well as in reading Ngubane's contributions in 1936 in the form of brilliant essays to the students' quarterly Iso Lomuzi at Adams College made an immediate determination to hire Ngubane in replacement of the retiring Mapumulo. This ability to make a quick judgement and decision that the young Ngubane (then barely twenty years old) had the makings of a great intellectual and a great journalist, both of which he later became, and thus a continuator of the high achievement of Mapumulo, can only bespeak well of the journalistic instincts of Ngubane. For by this time Josiah Mapumulo had been a dominant intellectual force in Natal through his writings in Ilanga lase Natal for over thirty years. In fact, within a month of John Dube launching the newspaper in 1903, Josiah Mapumulo became a regular contributor. Mapumulo seems to have had a deep influence on Vilakazi, the Dhlomo brothers, Ngubane and others. In 1933 Benedict Vilakazi remarked directly on this influence: "Now I can say the Ilanga is dominated by the opinions of Mr. Josiah Mapumulo. Several times I have made mention of the name of this gentleman in this and other journals. We, who are writers for the Ilanga should copy this from this gentleman: To read and pore on books, and absorb knowledge from newspapers both old and new and never to say that ae are grown old and tired of reading and reproducing. Many a time have I envied his quotations and wished I would turn burglar to search his library of old books of history of many mission stations, both Protestant and Catholic" ("What Writers Has This National Paper", Ilanga lase Natal, March 17, 1933). Given H. I. E. Dhlomo and Jordan Ngubane's everlasting admiration for Vilakazi, Mapumulo also affected them, even if not necessarily directly, at least through his protege. The credit for the influence of Mapumulo can also be attributed to Ngazana Luthuli, for he gave the Catholic philosopher and historian more ample space in the newspaper thasn he had in the era of John L. Dube. Luthuli recruited the young Vilakazi to the newspaper in 1932-3, as he had the young H. I. E. Dhlomo in the mid 1920s. Given these three great intellectuals, it is no wonder that for several decades Ilanga lase Natal was arguably one of th the finest newspaper in South Africa. The newspaper also became renowned because of Luthuli's editorials which were well-written and sharp witted, although invariably they avoided political matters, concentrating on cultural and political issues. Because he opened Ilanga lase Natal to these extraordinary minds, it is for this reason that the cultural renascence that occurred in Natal can partly be attributed to the brilliance of Ngazana Luthuli.