South Africa
Sol Plaatje
1876–1932 First Secretary-General, South African Native National Congress; in Britain from 1914
Born in 1876 in the Boshof district of the Orange Free State, Solomon Plaatje was educated at the Pniel mission station and served as a court interpreter during the siege of Mafeking in 1899–1900. He turned to journalism and, when the South African Native National Congress was formed in 1912, became its first secretary-general. In 1914 he went to Britain with a deputation appealing against the Natives Land Act of 1913. The mission failed, but he stayed on, lecturing and working as a language assistant at London University. During those years he produced Native Life in South Africa (1916), a detailed appeal against the Act. He also translated Shakespeare into Tswana, and his novel Mhudi appeared in 1930. He died of pneumonia on 19 June 1932.