Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu was born in
King Williams Town, in the
Eastern Cape, South Africa, and was educated at Morija Institution, a mission centre in Basutoland (present-day
Lesotho). He later studied at
Lovedale in the
Cape Province before going to the
United Kingdom, where he completed his matriculation at
Colwyn Bay in
Wales. In 1906 he entered the
University of London, earning a BA degree in English six years later. where he remained as professor of African languages until 1944. In addition, he established the South African Native Farmers' Association to encourage the development of better farming standards, stressing the value of manual labour. He also founded the Cape African Teachers' Association and the South African Native Teachers' Federation, which he led for many years. He was also president of the Cape Native Votes' Convention, which campaigned in the 1920 and 1930 for the retention of Africans' voting rights. In 1936, he was elected first president of the All African Convention (AAC), which sought to consolidate all non-European opposition to the proposed abolition of the African vote; the AAC's stance was subsequently construed as damaging by some radical elements in the
African National Congress (ANC). However, in 1948, the year that Jabavu retired from public life, he was a signatory to a joint ANC-AAC "Call for Unity", which attempted to reconcile their differences. The move was not successful, and Jabavu retired from its presidency. In later years, he ran a private insurance business. He also wrote articles and books on the African struggle, including
The Black Problem (1920),
The Segregation Fallacy and Other Papers (1928),
The Life of John Tengo Jabavu, editor of Imvo Zabantsundu (1922) and
IziDungulwana (1958). In recognition of his contribution towards the creation of a just South African society, in 1953 Jabavu was awarded an honorary doctorate by
Rhodes University. He died six years later in 1959, aged 73. ==References==