I cared more that he had helped found the League of Nations, promoting freedom around the world, than the fact that he had repressed freedom at home.

Smuts spoke about the importance of supporting Great Britain against the Germans and the idea that England stood for the same Western values that we, as South Africans, stood for. I remember thinking that his accent in English was almost as poor as mine! Along with my fellow classmates, I heartily applauded him, cheering Smuts’s call to do battle for the freedom of Europe, forgetting that we did not have that freedom here in our own land.

Smuts was preaching to the converted at Fort Hare. Each evening, the warden of Wesley House used to review the military situation in Europe, and late at night, we would huddle around an old radio and listen to BBC broadcasts of Winston Churchill’s stirring speeches. But even though we supported Smuts’s position, his visit provoked much discussion. During one session, a contemporary of mine, Nyathi Khongisa, who was considered an extremely clever fellow, condemned Smuts as a racist. He said that we might consider ourselves “black Englishmen,” but the English had oppressed us at the same time they tried to “civilize” us. Whatever the mutual antagonism between Boer and British, he said, the two white groups would unite to confront the black threat. Khongisa’s views stunned us and seemed dangerously radical. A fellow student whispered to me that Nyathi was a member of the African National Congress, an organization that I had vaguely heard of but knew very little about. Following South Africa’s declaration of war against Germany, Hertzog resigned and Smuts became prime minister.

 

 

During my second year at Fort Hare, I invited my friend Paul Mahabane to spend the winter holidays with me in the Transkei. Paul was from Bloemfontein and was well known on campus because his father, the Reverend Zaccheus Mahabane, had twice been president-general of the African National Congress. His connection to this organization, about which I still knew very little, gave him the reputation of a rebel.

One day, during the holiday, Paul and I went to Umtata, the capital of the Transkei, which then consisted of a few paved streets and some government buildings. We were standing outside the post office when the local magistrate, a white man in his sixties, approached Paul and asked him to go inside to buy him some postage stamps. It was quite common for any white person to call on any black person to perform a chore. The magistrate attempted to hand Paul some change, but Paul would not take it. The magistrate was offended. “Do you know who I am?” he said, his face turning red with irritation. “It is not necessary to know who you are,” Mahabane said. “I know what you are.” The magistrate asked him exactly what he meant by that. “I mean that you are a rogue!” Paul said heatedly. The magistrate boiled over and exclaimed, “You’ll pay dearly for this!” and then walked away.

I was extremely uncomfortable with Paul’s behavior. While I respected his courage, I also found it disturbing. The magistrate knew precisely who I was and I know that if he had asked me rather than Paul, I would have simply performed the errand and forgotten about it. But I admired Paul for what he had done, even though I was not yet ready to do the same thing myself. I was beginning to realize that a black man did not have to accept the dozens of petty indignities directed at him each day.

After my holiday, I returned to school early in the new year feeling strong and renewed. I concentrated on my studies, pointing toward examinations in October. In a year’s time, I imagined that I would have a B.A., just like clever Gertrude Ntlabathi. A university degree, I believed, was a passport not only to community leadership but to financial success. We had been told over and over again by the principal, Dr. Alexander Kerr, and Professors Jabavu and Matthews how, as graduates of Fort Hare, we were the African elite.