A significant milestone honouring Struggle stalwart and Pan Africanist, Robert Sobukwe will be commemorated at the Lit.Culture Books venue in Brixton, Johannesburg, as Skotaville Academic Publishers, Lit.Culture, and LAPA Project Space are set to jointly host the launch of ‘One Race: The Legacy of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’.
This event will on Thursday marks the centenary of Sobukwe’s birth and promises to be a critical occasion for intellectual reflection on the enduring legacy of this remarkable figure whose contributions have often been overlooked or misrepresented.
Authored by university professor, Luvuyo Mthimkhulu Dondolo, the book provides a much-needed scholarly interrogation of Sobukwe’s life and ideas, offering fresh perspectives on his ongoing relevance.
“Sobukwe was a man of vision, a revolutionary, an intellectual, and a South African political dissident with an Africanist voice,” Dondolo asserts, highlighting the multifaceted nature of Sobukwe’s identity.
Despite Sobukwe’s profound influence, Dondolo points out the alarming reality that his ideas are still “largely unknown, misrepresented, not comprehensively presented, and under-theorised”.
This oversight has resulted in Sobukwe’s significant contributions being inadequately explored in academic circles, a gap that Dondolo aims to address through meticulous research.
The book represents a groundbreaking scholarly interrogation that reclaims the historical record of Sobukwe’s life. Dondolo utilises a wealth of sources, including Sobukwe’s public speeches delivered from 1948 until shortly before his passing on March 21, 1960, alongside family archives, state records, and oral histories.
“His audio recordings were deliberately destroyed or are purposely hidden,” Dondolo reveals. “They include court proceedings and interviews with local and international journalists.”
Many institutions tasked with preserving these crucial audio narratives report they either do not have access to them or cannot locate them, further complicating academic engagement with Sobukwe’s legacy.
To bridge these significant gaps, Dondolo has engaged with family members and associates who interacted with Sobukwe throughout his life. These oral interviews help provide a fuller understanding of the man behind the ideas, an essential step in reclaiming a narrative that has been long neglected.
At the heart of Sobukwe’s message lies a compelling call for empowerment: “We do not wish to use anybody, nor do we intend to be used by anybody. We want to make the African people conscious of the fact that they have to win their own liberation.”
This resonates deeply today as discussions about self-determination and the quest for social justice continue globally.
Dondolo himself is a prominent figure in public history, Pan-African scholarship, and heritage studies. As an Associate Professor in the Department of History at UNISA and Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD) at UJ, his insights are enriched by experiences as a Fulbright Scholar at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania and as a Rockefeller Scholar at Emory University. This combination of expertise provides a solid foundation for exploring Sobukwe’s legacy comprehensively.
The Star
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za