John Langalibalele Dube - Statesman

Statesman

For a missionary-educated person there was conflict between the newly-arrived Western education and African traditional society. However, Dube navigated this social schism with a statesman-like ability, as in his later years, when he was able to win the trust of the Zulu royal family. It is conceivable that Dube would never have been part of the SANC, except that his teaching and discourse on the necessity of unity chimed in with the then nascent political atmosphere. It is now fashionable for biased historians to mention Dube's conservatism as evidence of his eventual parting of ways with ANC. But, actually, the truth is that the ANC was never a radical movement on the call of such issues as universal suffrage until it was radicalised by the formation of the ANC Youth League in the 1940s.

Dube's speeches as president of a black political mass-movement, have never been made available - the next formation of black people into a coherent socio-political movement was to come into being with Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, founded in 1914. In his politics Dube was cautious and conservative, yet he was forthright on the rights of blacks and the paramount tenet of unity - he foresaw the necessity of the unity of black people long before Garvey came to the international scene.