First President: A Life of John Dube, Founding President of the ANC

Front Cover
Jacana Media, 2011 - Art - 312 pages

A full biography of the founding president of the African National Council (ANC), this account uncovers the inspirations for John L. Dube's many public achievements. Tracing the history of his forbearers in the Zulu kingdom, this volume chronicles the politician's life from his birth in 1871, and highlights his many achievements, including the founding of the Ohlange School, the key role he played in the Bhambatha Rebellion, and the authorship of the first Zulu novel. As it evaluates Dube's five-year presidency of the ANC, this book shows that in spite of the many conflicts and ambiguities in his position, Dube's central political belief--that Africans should be directly represented in the parliament of the land--remained remarkably constant throughout his long career.

 

Contents

The inside people and the outside people
1
The python and the buffalo
20
An encounter with ice cream
41
Preparing for Africas redemption
65
A gigantic scheme in their heads
89
Vukani bantu
114
Playing with fire
141
Our gate post
166
A persons worst enemy
198
The Elephant of Inanda
220
The black ox has nowhere to feed
237
Where there was once a pool
256
Index
303
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Heather Hughes is the Principal Teacher fellow at the University of Lincoln and a former African politics and history professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has published in the areas of human rights and southern African history and heritage and has participated in a number of projects to refurbish and publicize South Africa’s neglected heritage, the most notable of which is the Inanda Heritage Trail in Durban.