by

Steven Lopez

Ernest Dhlomo was born in 1903 at the Siyamu Location (African settlement, near Pietermaritzburg in the Natal Province of South Africa, the second son of the preacher Ezra Sigadiya and Sarah (Caluza) Dhlomo. His mother was an aunt of the famed composer Reuben T. Caluza, and the young Herbert grew up in an atmosphere of music, literature, and earning. He entered the Adams College where he obtained his teacher's certificate, and cultivated his taste for reading, especially Shakespeare. He would perform the plays, and was
an accomplished singer, musician—playing piano and violin—and sportsman. Herbert left Adams College in 1924 and taught for many years in Natal , finally taking over the position of principal for the
American Board Mission School in Doornfontein in 1928. From 1937 through 1940, Dhlomo was in charge of the Carnegie Non-European Library Service in the Transvaal . One of the reasons that
he applied for the job was his poor health, which he felt would not be taxed as much with the Librarian-Organizer's job as with his multiple duties at the Mission Board School where he taught all levels of
classes single-handedly. He eventually left his position with the Carnegie Library Service due to a misunderstanding with the Reverend Ray Edmund Phillips, a dispute so bitter that even after 50 years,
Dhlomo's relatives speak of the close-minded attitude of the Reverend Phillips.

After leaving the library position, Dhlomo joined his brother on the staff of the Zulu language newspaper Ilanga lase Natal in Durban , until it merged with The Bantu World , at which time he was sent to
Johannesburg to work on the combined papers. In 1953, Dhlomo's health began to fail, and he developed a serious heart condition, and numerous small attacks put him in the hospital frequently during the last years of his life. In 1954, he had his first major heart attack, and on 20 October 1956 he entered the hospital in Durban dying on 23 October 1956 of another serious heart attack. Two months later, his father died. During his short life, Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo had written over 14 plays, hundreds of poems (mostly uncollected from
newspapers and magazines) including his epic poem The Valley of a Thousand Hills (1941), and numerous articles, among them "The Nature and Variety of Tribal Drama" from Bantu Studies (volume 12, 1939).
Dhlomo's life had always been hard, not only that hardness associated with being a black and treated as a minority in one's own country, and a black author with aspirations and creative impulses that had no
readily available outlets; but a special difficulty brought on by Dhlomo's absolute uncompromising attitude against the apartheid policies of his government. He was militant and outspoken in his poetry, a viewpoint that brought him much trouble and caused him to lose jobs, including his position as Librarian-Organizer. As an example, there are these lines from the poem titled "The Great Question": "Would you have me as a brother / Or a revengeful beast? / Would you have us help each other, / Or have our hates increased? / Would you have us live despairing? / Starve, kill, revolt and die? / Or free men co-operating; / wing helping wings to fly?" ( Ilanga lase
Natal , 15 January 1949, p. 16.)

Dhlomo was appointed the first Librarian-Organizer effective 1 March 1937, and it was also decided to purchase for him a small car with the agreement that Dhlomo would repay the Germiston Public Library its
cost in monthly installments. He would also receive a mileage allowance for the distances covered in visiting local library centers. Aside from such visits, Dhlomo's duties as Librarian-Organizer included working with the librarians at the Germiston Public Library, the central headquarters of the Non-European Library Services. He
selected and prepared books for issuing to African patrons, as well as packing and checking all of the books being distributed to the local library centers. Dhlomo also had to maintain all of his own records
and deal with the applications and correspondence. It was also his task to train the local volunteer staff of African helpers in the local libraries. At the numerous centers, Dhlomo had to check records of membership, circulation and book holdings, to train any helpers who could not make it to Germiston, and to address library committees.
During this period, Dhlomo was to tour the province, organizing the centers, and to make the work of the Library Service known far and wide. Dhlomo also spread the word of education through reading, and studied the reading tastes of his subscribers (as the patrons were called). At this time, the book holdings consisted of about equal
numbers of fiction and non-fiction books, with the demand for non-fiction holding a slight edge. The greatest demand was for biography, social studies, and economics, the most popular books of all being those dealing with Africa and its problems, and with the aspirations and struggles of the African people, white and black. Dhlomo noted that "everything in the native languages, which is unfortunately not very much, was eagerly sought after."
Regarding fiction, the taste of the readers was not frivolous. There was little or no demand for modern writers, and none whatsoever for detective stories or light fiction. Africans were reading the classics—Dickens, Fielding, and Thackeray being the favorites. The classically trained teacher Dhlomo must have found this preference
more than gratifying. "My people feel that they have so much to learn, so much leeway to make up that there is no time to waste on trash," stated Dhlomo. "The natives definitely look upon the library service as a heaven-sent
opportunity to educate themselves."

Throughout his tenure, Dhlomo the journalist was able to enlist the active support of many newspapers, which ran articles very favorable to his library service, notably in Umteteli wa Bantu and in The Bantu World . He also contributed frequent articles himself to journals such as South African Outlook , Transvaal Native Education Quarterly , Natal Native Teachers' Journal , South African Libraries , Bantu Studies , and African Yearly Register .

Dhlomo's busiest year was 1938. Toward the end of 1937 he addressed the Transvaal Native Teachers' Conference on the subject he favored most—the African library movement, and he attended the second annual
Bantu Authors' Conference held in Johannesburg . In early 1938 he and several white librarians visited centers in remote eastern and northern sections of the Transvaal . They all found these visits of tremendous interest, not only in delineating the difficulties that some Africans had in obtaining books in small towns, but in discovering the determination that these patrons possessed in wanting to read. And in 1938, one of Dhlomo's numerous plays was performed at the Bantu Men's Social Center in Johannesburg , which was also the local library
center. The play, Moshoeshoe, centered on the rule of the benevolent Sotho king, Moshoeshoe; it was performed in English to a large audience with Dhlomo acting a part. The cast were all Africans, but
the audience was mixed, with the Mayor of Johannesburg attending, along with several Committee members of the Non-European Library Service. The play was a revelation to all who were present, and the reviews indicated that it heralded the birth of African drama in South Africa .

Editing and publishing The Reader's Companion , the bulletin of the Carnegie Non-European Library, Transvaal , was Dhlomo's responsibility. The purpose of this bulletin was to provide information and guidance to some of the remoter local library centers in the rural areas of the Transvaal . Four issues appeared, and 500 copies of each were and sent to all local library centers, to interested persons and organizations, and to library officials.
This issue also had news from five other local library centers, and two pages of suggested readings for Africans including books in Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, and newspapers in Zulu and English. There were also hints to African librarians on keeping record cards, and also on how to keep the centers active—by organizing debates, arranging lectures by Vilakazi, Selope Thema, A. Habedi and the Reverend Ray Phillips. Dhlomo continued with his series on African authors, dealing with James J. R. Jolobe, and with Dhlomo's brother R. R. R. Dhlomo. There was also more information to librarians, and detailed book information on books available from the Library Service dealing with the Northern Transvaal languages of Tsonga, Ronga and Shangaan. Dhlomo also reviewed a book by the Reverend Ray Phillips, The Bantu in the City, giving no indication of his increasing troubles with the author. On 8 November 1938, Dhlomo addressed a meeting of the committee at the Pietersburg Location Hall. Unfortunatly by the end of 1938, citing the pressures of his position, Dhlomo was forced to discontinue
publication of The Reader's Companion at the end of 1938.

In 1939, Dhlomo maintained his Librarian-Organizer activities, and on 4 October 1939 he was responsible for setting up a symposium sponsored by the Carnegie Non-European Library, Transvaal, on the topic of "My
Program for African Development" in Johannesburg . Among his speakers were A. T. Habedi, P. M. Mabiletse, and the Vice-President of the African Dramatic and Operatic Society, R. V. Selope Thema, B. W.
Vilakazi, and Prof. Alfred Bitini Xuma, author. In the same month, Dhlomo presented his second play, Ruby and Frank, a drama with songs and comedy concerning the question of whether an African male should
marry a colored female (the colored being a mixture of white and black, and a group that the government of South Africa strived to keep separated from the other groups—whites, Africans, Indians). This is a topic that seemed to fascinate Dhlomo, as it was used in several of his poems from this period. Use of this taboo theme, and Dhlomo's increasingly militant complaints about the inequities in his land may have led to his falling out with the Reverend Phillips.

On 23 January 1940, Dhlomo organized a literary social in the Orlando suburb of Johannesburg , with B. W. Vilakazi, W. B. Ngakane and Godfrey R. Kuzwayo, all authors, appearing. Later that year, he took another
trip to remote areas of his province to visit some of the rural local library centers. The number of centers was reduced somewhat—to 81 by mid-1940—but the circulation increased slightly, to 10,200 books. In late 1940, Dhlomo's disagreements with the Reverend Phillips forced him to quit or to be fired, probably around December. By January 1941, Dhlomo was replaced as Librarian-Organizer and he was working back at the Ilanga lose Natal newspaper offices. During the remaining 15 years of his life he continued to have an interest in libraries, but not on the same level as before. He died on 23 October 1956 in Durban , and the Ilanga lose Natal carried his obituary on the front page and inside pages. Library service for the African did not end when Dhlomo left the Service, but from then on it lost focus.

In 1946, the government took over the Carnegie Non-European Library Service, changing the name to the Non-European Library Service, Transvaal, and moving it to Pretoria . By the year 1949, the Committee of the Library Service started up the training of African librarians through the (segregated) South African Library Association. In 1956, the government formed the Department of Bantu Education to regulate every aspect of the education of the African. The Department took control of all public library work with Africans in South Africa , with
the result that the Library Service so proudly started by the Carnegie Corporation in the Transvaal in 1928 was terminated in 1958. In 1964, the Bantu Library Association was formed, a national organization for African librarians, equivalent to the all-white South African Library Association. By 1968, Pretoria had established seven
regional offices of Bantu Library Service ( Transvaal Provincial Library Service) under its Non-European Library Service—43,500 members spread throughout 34 public libraries and 46 local library centers for Africans. There still existed a dire shortage of books in the African languages of South Africa , but circulation in 1968 reached 300,000. In 1972, the national Association changed its name to the African Library Association of South Africa, and in 1976 with the establishment of two independent states within the Republic of South Africa, reserved for
Africans only—Transkei and Bophuthatswana—full library services for these states and the states projected for the future were planned. With the slow eradication of apartheid that has begun with the reconciliation between the government of F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, the future may produce
another Herbert Isaac Ernest Dhlomo.

Bibliography:

1) http://www.africanreviewofbooks.com/Newsitems/biko2003.html.

2) The New African: A Study of the Life and Work of HIE Dhlomo by Tim Couzens.
Johannesburg : Ravan Press, 1985.

3) http://www.safrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/culture/923829.htm