Makers and Shapers Profile

Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu

Person

20 October 1885 - 3 August 1959

[Source - Benathi Marufu for FHYA, 2022 using sahistory.org: D.D.T. Jabavu was a Xhosa educationist and politician, and a founder of the All African Convention (AAC), which sought to unite all non-European opposition to the segregationist measure of the South African government. He was the eldest son of political activist and pioneering newspaper editor John Tengo Jabavu, and the father of Noni Jabavu, one of the first African female writers and journalists. He was educated in South Africa, in Wales, and at the universities of London and Birmingham. In 1916 he began teaching at Fort Hare Native College (later University College) in Fort Hare, Cape Province. In December 1935 he founded the All-African National Convention (AANC), which led the opposition to a series of bills whose purpose was to disfranchise black Africans, prevent them from owning land, and keep them from selling their labour freely. The convention brought together the entire spectrum of opposition to the white government and was instrumental in creating and organizing black African awareness of growing white militancy. Jabavu became the leader of the Cape Native Voters' Association at the first non-European conference held in South Africa. During the years 1945-47, the AANC became more militant, but by 1948 its membership had declined, and it disbanded. Jabavu retired from politics to devote his time to his post as professor of Latin and Bantu languages at University College, Fort Hare. Jabavu was the author of The Black Problem (1920), The Segregation Fallacy and Other Papers (1928), The Influence of English on Bantu Literature (1943), and many volumes of poetry in the Xhosa language.]