Abstract
Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu was born in the Cape Colony in British southern Africa on 20 October 1885, when a few African men could vote and the prospects for black equality with the ruling whites seemed promising. He died on 3 August 1959, in the Cape Province of the Union of South Africa, 11 years after the apartheid state had begun stripping blacks of their rights and exorcizing the ‘ghost of equality’ with a completeness unparalleled in the country’s history.2. The ‘ghost of equality’ was the last vestige of the Cape liberal tradition — itself best summed up by the dictum ‘equal rights for all civilized men’ — finally erased in 1959 with the passage of legislation that would, the following year, remove from parliament the last elected representatives of Africans.
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Notes
This article is adapted from Catherine Higgs, The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D. D. T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885–1959 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997; Cape Town: David Philip, 1997; Bellville: Mayibuye Books, 1997), chapters 1 and 3. I thank the publishers for permission to reproduce sections of the text.
W. M. Tsotsi, ‘Gallery of African Heroes Past and Present: Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu’, Inkundla ya Bantu (The Bantu Forum), June 1941.
Saul Dubow, Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa (London: Macmillan Press – now Palgrave, 1989) pp. 150–1.
R. F. Alfred Hoernlé, South African Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit, Being the Phelps-Stokes Lectures, Delivered Before the University of Cape Town, May, 1939 (Cape Town, 1939) p. viii; Edgar H. Brookes, The Colour Problems of South Africa: Being the Phelps-Stokes Lectures, 1933, Delivered at the University of Cape Town (Lovedale, 1934) p. 81; D. D. T. Jabavu, The Segregation Fallacy and Other Papers: A Native View of Some South African Inter-Racial Problems (Lovedale, 1928), pp. 29–30; see also Phyllis Lewsen, ‘The Cape Liberal Tradition – Myth or Reality?’ Race: Journal of the Institute of Race Relations, 12, 1 ( July 1971) 69–70; T. R. H. Davenport, ‘The Cape Liberal Tradition to 1910’, Democratic Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospect, eds Jeffrey Butler, Richard Elphick and David Welsh (Middletown, CT, 1987) pp. 21, 30.
Richard Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity and Interwar Liberalism’, in Democratic Liberalism in South Africa, p. 65.
D. D. T. Jabavu, paraphrasing the Rev. T. Z. Koo in ‘After Three Gener-ations’, The Christian Mission in the World Today (Report of the Eleventh Quadrennial Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Buffalo, New York, December 30, 1931 to January 3, 1932), ed. Raymond P. Currier (New York, 1932), 44–5.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christian Service in Rural and Industrial South Africa’, The Christian Mission in the World Today, 65.
Richard Elphick, ‘Africans and the Christian Campaign in Southern Africa’, The Frontier in History: North America and South Africa Compared, eds Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson (New Haven, 1981) p. 279; Norman Etherington, Preachers, Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa, 1835–1880: African Christian Communities in Natal, Pondoland, and Zululand (London, 1978) p. 24; Joseph Whiteside, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in South Africa (London, 1906) pp. 35–6; John W. De Gruchy, The Church Struggle in South Africa, 2nd edn (London, 1986) p. 14.
W. D. Hammond-Tooke, ed., The Journal of William Shaw (Cape Town, 1972) pp. 7–10; De Gruchy, Church Struggle, p. 14; D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism has done for the Natives (Lovedale, [1923]) p. 4; Leo Kuper, ‘African Nationalism in South Africa, 1910–1964’, Oxford History of South Africa, eds Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, vol. 2 (New York, 1971) p. 475.
Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1991) pp. 231–4; Leo Kuper, An African Bourgeoisie: Race, Class and Politics in South Africa (New Haven, 1965) pp. 73–4; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Pilgrim Hall, January 8, 1932’ [Speech to the Department of Woman’s Work, Massachusetts Congregational Conference and Missionary Society], 1, ABC: Biographical Collection: Individuals: Jabavu, Mr. and Mrs. David Dan [sic] Tengo, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (hereafter ABC, Houghton Library, HU); D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘After Three Generations’, 42.
D. D. T. Jabavu, The Life of John Tengo Jabavu, Editor of Imvo Zabantsundu, 1884–1921 (Lovedale, 1922) pp. 8, 16, 21–2.
Ibid., p. 110.
Ibid., p. 111.
Ibid., pp. 114, 118; Wesleyan Methodist Church, Minutes of the .. . Annual Conference (1883–1921), Cory Library for Historical Research, Rhodes University. (Hereafter, Cory Library.)
D. D. T. Jabavu, John Tengo Jabavu, p. 116.
See Nosipho Majeke [Dora Taylor], The Role of the Missionaries in Conquest (Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, n.d.), and Monica Wilson’s response, Missionaries: Conquerors or Servants of God? (King William’s Town, 1976); D. D. T. Jabavu, John Tengo Jabavu, p. 112.
D. D. T. Jabavu, John Tengo Jabavu, p. 112.
Brian Rose and Raymond Tunmer, eds. Documents in South African Education (Johannesburg, 1975) p. 211.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘The Meaning of the Cross in the Life of the World Today’, Foreign Missions Conference of North America 1932 (Report of the ThirtyNinth Annual Meeting of the Conference of Foreign Mission Boards in Canada and the United States, Atlantic City, New Jersey, January 12–15, 1932), eds Leslie B. Moss and Mabel H. Brown (New York, [1932]), 234; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Pilgrim Hall, January 8, 1932’, 2, ABC, Houghton Library, HU.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘After Three Generations’, 42.
See Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 64–80.
‘A Settler’s Centenary Meeting. Queenstown – Wesleyan Conference – Thursday 1st May 1919. Address by D. D. T. Jabavu B.A. (Lond.)’ Cory Library, PR4183, 1, 2.
D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism Has Done, p. 3.
Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of South Africa with Lists of Contributions to the Sustentation and Mission Fund, 1917–1941; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Pilgrim Hall, January 8, 1932’, 8.
D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism Has Done, p. 5; André Odendaal, Vukani Bantu!: The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa to 1912 (Cape Town, 1984) p. 25; De Gruchy, Church Struggle, p. 41.
D. D. T. Jabavu, John Tengo Jabavu, p. 118; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Lessons From The Israelite Episode (Part of an address to Fort Hare students by Mr. D. D. T. Jabavu, Sunday, May 29, 1921)’, Christian Express, July 1, 1921, 105–6. See also, Robert Edgar, Because They Chose the Plan of God: The Story of the Bulhoek Massacre ( Johannesburg, 1988).
D. D. T. Jabavu, foreword to The Native Separatist Church Movement in South Africa by Allen Lea (Cape Town, [1926]) pp. 11–12.
‘A Settlers’ Centenary Meeting, Queenstown – Wesleyan Conference – Thursday 1st May 1919, Address by D. D. T. Jabavu B.A. (Lond.)’, Cory Library, PR4183, 3–4.
South African Outlook, 1 Mar. 1923, 50. See also ‘The United Missionary Campaign,’ South African Outlook, 2 Feb. 1925, 32; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 78.
D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism Has Done, pp. 2, 7.
See Tim Couzens, The New African: A Study of the Life of H. I. E. Dhlomo (Johannesburg, 1985).
D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism Has Done, 7; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 71.
D. D. T. Jabavu, What Methodism Has Done, p. 8.
Ibid.; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 68. See also J. Dexter Taylor, ed., Christianity and the Natives of South Africa: A Year Book of South African Missions (Lovedale, 1929) pp. x–xi.
‘United Missionary Campaign,’ South African Outlook, 2 Feb. 1925, 32; Robert Handy, The Social Gospel in America 1870–1920 (New York, 1966) pp. 14–15; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, p. 71.
Handy, The Social Gospel in America, pp. 3–4.
Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, p. 74.
Higgs, Ghost of Equality, pp. 23–8.
Handy, The Social Gospel in America, p. 5; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 74–5; see for example ‘The Africa Conference’, South African Outlook, 1 Oct. 1926, 223 and 1 Mar. 1923, 53; Alexander Kerr, ‘Extracts from Report on Some American Institutions’, South African Outlook, 1 Sept. 1923, 201–3; South African Outlook, 1 April 1926, 79 and 1 Sept. 1927, 164–5.
‘The General Missionary Conference of South Africa’, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, Record Group 69. Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, CT 1.
Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 75; Addresses on General Subjects, vol. 8 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, March 24–April 8, 1928 (New York, 1928), 1; A. C. Headlam, The Doctrine of the Church and Christian Reunion: Being the Bampton Lectures for the Year 1920, 2nd edn (London, 1920) p. 315; ‘The Reunion of Christendom. – II’, South African Outlook, 1 May 1925, 110.
‘Towards Reunion’ and ‘A United Native Church’, South African Outlook, 1 Mar. 1926, 70–1; South African Outlook, 1 Apr. 1925, 75–6; J. Scott Lidgett, ‘Reunion of Non-Episcopal Churches from the Standpoint of Methodism’, South African Outlook, 1 Feb. 1926, 44–7; Taylor, Christianity and the Natives of South Africa, pp. x–xi.
‘United Missionary Campaign,’ South African Outlook, 1 Feb. 1925, 31–2.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christianity and the Bantu’, Thinking with Africa: Chapters by a Group of Nationals Interpreting the Christian Movement, ed. Milton Stauffer (New York, 1927) pp. 116–17; Kuper, African Bourgeoisie, pp. 193– 4; Allen Lea, The Story of the Methodist Union in South Africa: Being an Account of the Unification of Methodism in South Africa (Cape Town [1932]) pp. 13–14; ‘Church Union in South Africa’, South Africa Outlook, 1 June 1933, 103–4; De Gruchy, The Church Struggle, p. 39; ‘Addresses’, [1923– 1957], D. D. T. Jabavu Collection, University of South Africa (hereafter UNISA); D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church: A Plea for Its Establishment in South Africa (Lovedale, 1942) p. 3; Odendaal, Vukani Bantu!, p. 27.
Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912–1952 (Johannesburg, 1983) p. 252.
Gail Gerhart, Political Profiles 1882–1964, vol. 4 of From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa 1882–1964, ed. Thomas Karis and Gwendolen M. Carter (Stanford, CA, 1972–7, 1987) p. 65; Walshe, Rise of African Nationalism, pp. 252–3.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christianity and the Bantu’, pp. 118–19. 48. Ibid., p. 117.
Ibid., p. 117.
‘Ciskei Missionary Council: Report on the Economic Condition of the Native People’, South African Outlook, 1 Mar. 1928, 48–50; ‘A Retrospect’, South African Outlook, 1 Jan. 1926, 7; ‘The Ciskeian Missionary Council’, South African Outlook, 1 Dec. 1925, 277–9.
De Gruchy, Church Struggle, p. 197.
Rufus M. Jones, ‘Secular Civilization and the Christian Task’, The Christian Life and Message in Relation to Non-Christian Systems of Thought and Life, vol. 1 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, 230, 272–3.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘After Three Generations’, 46.
D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Jerusalem [In Jerusalem], 4th edn, trans. Cecil Wele Manona [unpub.] (Lovedale, 1948) p. 8; Interview with J. M. Mohapeloa, Maseru, Lesotho, 30 Mar. 1988; Interview with Sipo Makalima, Alice, Ciskei, 23 Nov. 1987.
D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Jerusalem, pp. 22, 27.
Ibid., p. 23.
Noni Jabavu, The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life (London, 1963) pp. 10–11.
Addresses on General Subjects, vol. 8 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, p. 8; The Christian Mission in the Light of Race Conflict, vol. 4 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council; William Paton, ‘The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council’, International Review of Missions, vol. 17 (1928) 9.
The Christian Mission in the Light of Race Conflict, vol. 4 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, p. 184.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christianity and the Bantu’, 134.
‘The Race Problem. Lecture by Professor Jabavu. Jerusalem Conference and Segregation’, Cape Mercury, 27 Aug. 1928; Higgs, Ghost of Equality, pp. 67–8, 95–6, 100.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Native Disabilities’ in South Africa (1932) p. 5; D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Amerika [In America] trans. Cecil Wele Manona [unpub.] (Lovedale, 1932) p. 16; Higgs, Ghost of Equality, pp. 67–8.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Native Disabilities’, pp. 6–7, 16–17; Imvo Zabantsundu, 22 Dec. 1931.
D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Amerika, p. 12.
A. Keppel-Jones, South Africa, 5th edn (London, 1975) pp. 164, 180; Higgs, Ghost of Equality, p. 68.
Taylor, Christianity and the Natives of South Africa, p. 229; Odendaal, Vukani Bantu!, pp. 25, 27; Mutero Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans in Southern Africa, 1883–1916 (Baton Rouge, LA, 1987) p. 3; Walter L. Williams, Black Americans and the Evangelization of Africa, 1877–1900 (Madison, WI, 1982), pp. 54–8; Carol A. Page, ‘Colonial Reaction to AME Missionaries in South Africa, 1898–1910’, Black Americans and the Missionary Movement in Africa, ed. Sylvia M. Jacobs (Westport, CT, 1982) p. 177; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christianity and the Bantu’, 119.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘After Three Generations’, 43.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘White and Black in South Africa,’ The Christian Mission in the World Today, p. 238.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christian Service’, 64–5.
Ibid., 70.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Pilgrim Hall, January 8, 1932’, ABC, Houghton Library, HU, 4; Elphick, ‘Mission Christianity’, 72; Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic: The Autobiography of Phyllis Ntantala (Berkeley, CA, 1992) p. 70; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘Christian Service’, 66, 72–3; Gerhart, Political Profiles, vol. 4 of From Protest to Challenge, p. 126.
Buffalo Courier-Express, 3 Jan. 1932; Boston Globe, 8 Jan. 1932, 9 Jan. 1932; Press release from D. P. Cushing, news editor, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (n.d.), 1, and Dorothy P. Cushing to D. D. T. Jabavu, 25 May 1932, ABC, Houghton Library, HU; D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Amerika, p. 32.
Dorothy P. Cushing, ‘Jabavu Comes – Sees – and Conquers’, Missionary Herald, Mar. 1932, 93, ABC, Houghton Library, HU.
Ibid., 98.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘The Meaning of the Cross’, 239; Higgs, Ghost of Equality, chapters 3 and 4.
Higgs, Ghost of Equality, pp. 44–5.
D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘The Meaning of the Cross’, 232, 235–6.
Ibid., 237.
D. D. T. Jabavu, E-Amerika, pp. i, 22–3, 23.
Walshe, African National Congress, p. 253. Gerhart, Political Profiles, vol. 4 of From Protest to Challenge, pp. 16–17.
‘The Separatist Churches of South Africa’, letter to the editor from James A. Calata, South African Outlook, 1 Apr. 1938, 93.
S. Grosskopf, ‘Indigenous Churches (Reflections Suggested by the Adams Conference)’, South African Outlook, 1 Oct. 1938, 225–7; Gerhart, Political Profiles, vol. 4 of From Protest to Challenge, pp. 97–100, 116; Walshe, African National Congress, p. 253; ‘The Separatist Churches of South Africa’, South African Outlook, 1 Apr. 1938, 92; D. D. T. Jabavu, ‘An African Indigenous Church’, 5.
I. B. Tabata to T. I. N. Sondlo, 3 Nov. 1943 and T. I. N. Sondlo to the editor, the Torch, Oct. 1946, Unity Movement Papers, J. W. Jagger Library, University of Cape Town Libraries, Cape Town, BC925; Higgs, Ghost of Equality, pp. 121–4.
D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church, p. 4;
Ibid., pp. 3, 15.
A. L. Warnshuis, ‘Major Issues in the Relations of the Younger and the Older Churches’, The Relation Between the Younger and the Older Churches, vol. 3 of The Jerusalem Meeting of the International Missionary Council, pp. 7, 34; D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church, p. 2.
D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church, pp. 3, 15–16.
Walshe, Rise of African Nationalism, p. 253.
D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church, pp. 12–13, 16; Z. K. Matthews, Freedom for My People: The Autobiography of Z. K. Matthews, Southern Africa 1901 to 1968 (Cape Town, 1981) pp. 83–5.
D. D. T. Jabavu, An African Indigenous Church, p. 14.
Kenneth Robinson, ‘The Society’s Medals’, African Affairs, 85, no. 338 (January 1986): 10.
Lovedale Bulletin, 31, 25 Oct. 1957.
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Higgs, C. (2001). A Christian, Civilized Man: D. D. T. Jabavu of South Africa. In: Youé, C., Stapleton, T. (eds) Agency and Action in Colonial Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288485_7
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