Perhaps there is no better indication of the historical consciousness Professor Z. K. Matthews had for African history, customs and intellectual traditions than the very fact that at the very moment when white nationalism had defeated black nationalism, a nadir signalled by the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, he summoned his incomparable knowledge to reconstruct African political and intellectual history in South Africa, as though to say that with this rich intellectual lineage African nationalism will eventually prevail, as it did in 1994. His vast canvas of intellectual and political portraits, under the rubric of "Our Heritage", in Imvo Zabantsundu from June 3rd to November 21st 1961, had no precedence and has not been superseded in the following decades. In the prolegemonon to the series, he clearly indicated that he would concern himself with matters affecting the modernity of the African people: "For our present purpose I shall confine myself to our modern leaders. . . . We must place on record for the benefit of our readers, especially the rising generation, something of the rich heritage or endeavour by their forefathers which they might emulate of from which they might draw inspiration. I believe it is difficult if not impossible to inspire people who know little or nothing of what has gone on before them. Such people are apt to imagine that everything in the world started when they were born and will end when they pass out of existence" (Imvo Zabantsundu, June 3, 1961). This philosophical credo seems to have inspired all of his writings, from his earliest writings ("A New Native Teachers' Course", Ilanga lase Natal, November 4, 11, 1927) through his monumentally magisterial M. A. thesis (Bantu Law and Western Civilisation in South Africa: A Study in the Clash of Cultures, Yale University, 1934) through his great historical essay ("A Short History of the Tshidi Barolong", Fort Hare Papers, vol. 1 no. 1, June 1945) to his last written work ("Foreword", in Responsible Government in a Revolutionary Age, [ed.] Z. K. Matthews, Association Press, New York, 1966). The portraits are impressive for their conceptual depth and geographical splay: John Tengo Jabavu, Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, Solomon T. Plaatje, Pambani Jeremiah Mzimba, John L. Dube, John Knox Bokwe, R. V. Selope Thema, Meschach Pelem, Walter B. Rubusana, Thomas M. Mapikela, Charlotte Manye Maxeke, 'Prof.' James Thaele, Isaiah Bud-Mbelle, Hamilton Masiza, Paul Xiniwe, S. E. Krune Mqhayi, Elijah Makiwane, S. M. Makgatho, Charles Dube, William Samuel Mazwi, Alfred Mangena and Pixley ka Isaka Seme. Nothing of this depth had been attempted before: by comparative contrast, F. Z. S. Peregrino's portraits of New African religious leaders in his newspaper South African Spectator in the 1900s and Pixley ka Isaka Seme's portraits of New African lawyers and political leaders in Tsala ea Batho in the 1910s were fragile constructions, while H. I. E. Dhlomo's portraits of Zulu New African intelligentsia in Ilanga lase Natal in 1950 were too narrow and unduly circumscribed. The only comparable effort to Z. K. Matthews achievements was Jordan Ngubane's portraits of black and white political leaders from traditional chiefs in the early nineteenth-century to the modern leaders (the contributions in The Mcgraw-Hill Encyclopedia Of World Biography, 12 volumes, New York, 1973). Given this unsurpassed achievement is it surprising that H. I. E. Dhlomo held Z. K. Matthews in high esteem. A full decade before Matthews' intellectual and political portraits, Dhlomo, singling him out for intellectual lucidness in the context of the then emergent government policy of apartheid in 1948, had this to say of him in an Editorial: "The truth is that Professor Matthews has done this---and more. He knows that economic and external factors are not everything; that human nature and reaction are as important factors as any; that economic and plain facts have not prevented wars and other disturbances; that even now the hard and plain facts of atomic bombs, bacterial weapons and inevitable economic collapse cannot alone prevent the next war. there is the human, the ideological and other factors" ("The Next 25 Years", [H. I. E. Dhlomo], Ilanga lase Natal, October 2, 1948). Z. K. Matthews was being praised for his totalizing explanatory systems, which were inclusive and open to other unpredictable mediating factors. This estimation of Matthews was written in the context of other Editorials Dhlomo wrote at this time about the responsibilities of New African intellectuals in the era of modernity. The three areas of Matthews' passion, in each of which he excelled: education, politics and customary law. On matters concerning education, Matthews' autobiography has a whole chapter devoted to Fort Hare University. Given that he was among the first students to enroll at this once legendary institution, it is not surprising that Freedom For My People (published posthumously in 1981) has arguably the most thorough appraisal of the historical meaning of education for Africans in modernity written by a New African intellectual. Having been once the Principal of the equally legendary Adams College in Natal, and having been students together with Jomo Kenyatta in Bronislaw Malinowski seminar at the London School of Economics, it is not surprising that Matthews was selected to be a member of the Royal Commission on Education in East Africa in the late 1930s. Subsequently, he was to succeed Professor D. D. T. Jabavu as Professor of African languages at Fort Hare. Later in the 1960s, he became a constultant on matters of education with the poscolonial governments in East Africa (Kentatta's Kenya, Nyerere's Tanzania and Obote's Uganda). In matters of politics, Matthews as President General of the (Cape) African National Congress in the early 1950s, proposed the idea of the Congress of the People convention which drafted the Freedom Charter of the ANC in 1955 in Kliptown. The results of this proposition are a landmark in the history of South African politics. Lastly, his aforementioned thesis beapeaks of a remarkable understanding  of the complex 'interaction' between European modernities and African traditions. Given these achievements, is it surprising that one of his students named Nelson Mandela in his autobiography memorialized Professor Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews with the following words: "Fort Hare was both home and incubator of some of the greatest African scholars the continent has ever known. Professor Z. K. Matthews was the very model of the African intellectual. A child of a miner, Z. K. had been influenced by Booker Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, which preached success through hard work and moderation. He taught social anthropology and law and bluntly spoke out against the government's social policies" (Long Walk To Freedom, p. 44).