The University of Fort Hare, now celebrating its 100th anniversary, was amazingly small during the 1940s when it produced many of South Africa’s future elites: it had fewer than 400 students.
Yet this was the era of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Nthato Motlana and a host of other luminaries who went on to lead the struggle for freedom.
Once a week, syndicate members treated themselves to a meal from Alice’s only hotel, the Amatola.
As was usual at the time, the hotel was whites-only so students were barred from using the front door, let alone the dining-room. They went to the kitchen door at the back with their own plates and pots, placed their orders – grilled steak was the favourite dish – and returned to their hostel rooms to reheat the food on primus stoves.
Although college life was relatively regimented, Fort Hare had an exceptional quality which explains a great deal about its future impact.
“There was free debate and students could read what they wanted,” according to Cecil Ntloko, one of the minority of black staff members. Ntloko had done a BA at the University of Cape Town where small numbers of blacks studied, and taught “Native Administration” at Fort Hare.
Alice was a rural village a long way from anywhere and Fort Hare was isolated from the world. This fostered quick and close friendships among students and much contact with sympathetic and politically alive lecturers like Cecil Ntloko and Dr ZK Matthews, an ANC leader later said to have proposed the idea for the 1955 Freedom Charter.
Radios were a rarity – owned by only a handful – and the news was avidly followed.
The Daily Dispatch newspaper came from the nearest town, East London, and a few lecturers and the college library got it. Books about current events were devoured: the library had one copy of Edward Roux’s Time Longer Than Rope, the story of resistance to white rule; groups of students took turns to borrow it and spent the night reading it to each other.
There was reason to follow the news. World War 2 was fought with the promise of freedom and the ANC put that into words with its African claims in South Africa starting by “urgently demanding the granting of full citizenship rights such as are enjoyed by Europeans”.
Their hopes and dreams were soon shattered, followed by the 1948 victory of the Afrikaner Nationalist party with its policy of apartheid to deepen and strengthen existing racial discrimination.
The dismay and fear among blacks spurred the founding of a branch of the ANC Youth League which had been formed nationally in 1944.
Godfrey Pitje, a student who returned to lecture, sought ZK Matthews’ approval and then wrote to the league’s president, AP Mda.
An encouraging reply came: “Fort Hare is just the place to start a Youth League. The young people there are the intellectual leaders-to-be.”
And so, of course, it proved to be: 50 students and staff met on a Sunday afternoon in August 1948 to form a branch. Its members went on to play their historic roles in bringing about the free South Africa.
But Fort Hare (and most of missionary education) fell victim to apartheid through the Bantu Education imposed in 1959 and became subject to racist rules and control until the shackles were removed after 1994.
The University of Fort Hare has since spread beyond Alice and has three campuses with 13300 students.
As it marks its centenary it is struggling to relate its legacy of service to 21st century pressures.
This is an extract from Benjamin Pogrund’s Robert Sobukwe: How Can Man Die Better, now in its third edition, published by Jonathan Ball
Small regimented varsity gave birth to great ideas
Yet this was the era of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Nthato Motlana and a host of other luminaries who went on to lead the struggle for freedom.
Once a week, syndicate members treated themselves to a meal from Alice’s only hotel, the Amatola.
As was usual at the time, the hotel was whites-only so students were barred from using the front door, let alone the dining-room. They went to the kitchen door at the back with their own plates and pots, placed their orders – grilled steak was the favourite dish – and returned to their hostel rooms to reheat the food on primus stoves.
Although college life was relatively regimented, Fort Hare had an exceptional quality which explains a great deal about its future impact.
“There was free debate and students could read what they wanted,” according to Cecil Ntloko, one of the minority of black staff members. Ntloko had done a BA at the University of Cape Town where small numbers of blacks studied, and taught “Native Administration” at Fort Hare.
Alice was a rural village a long way from anywhere and Fort Hare was isolated from the world. This fostered quick and close friendships among students and much contact with sympathetic and politically alive lecturers like Cecil Ntloko and Dr ZK Matthews, an ANC leader later said to have proposed the idea for the 1955 Freedom Charter.
Radios were a rarity – owned by only a handful – and the news was avidly followed.
The Daily Dispatch newspaper came from the nearest town, East London, and a few lecturers and the college library got it. Books about current events were devoured: the library had one copy of Edward Roux’s Time Longer Than Rope, the story of resistance to white rule; groups of students took turns to borrow it and spent the night reading it to each other.
There was reason to follow the news. World War 2 was fought with the promise of freedom and the ANC put that into words with its African claims in South Africa starting by “urgently demanding the granting of full citizenship rights such as are enjoyed by Europeans”.
Their hopes and dreams were soon shattered, followed by the 1948 victory of the Afrikaner Nationalist party with its policy of apartheid to deepen and strengthen existing racial discrimination.
The dismay and fear among blacks spurred the founding of a branch of the ANC Youth League which had been formed nationally in 1944.
Godfrey Pitje, a student who returned to lecture, sought ZK Matthews’ approval and then wrote to the league’s president, AP Mda.
An encouraging reply came: “Fort Hare is just the place to start a Youth League. The young people there are the intellectual leaders-to-be.”
And so, of course, it proved to be: 50 students and staff met on a Sunday afternoon in August 1948 to form a branch. Its members went on to play their historic roles in bringing about the free South Africa.
But Fort Hare (and most of missionary education) fell victim to apartheid through the Bantu Education imposed in 1959 and became subject to racist rules and control until the shackles were removed after 1994.
The University of Fort Hare has since spread beyond Alice and has three campuses with 13300 students.
As it marks its centenary it is struggling to relate its legacy of service to 21st century pressures.
This is an extract from Benjamin Pogrund’s Robert Sobukwe: How Can Man Die Better, now in its third edition, published by Jonathan Ball
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