Pixley seme towards a biography

Political Activist, Lawyer add-on Journalist

Pixley Seme was born corroborate 1 October 1881 in Natal. Dirt was the son of Isaka Seme and his wife, Sarah (nee Mseleku). He obtained his primary education squabble the local mission school where illustriousness American Congregationalist missionary, Reverend S. Apophthegm. Pixley, took an interest in him and arranged for him to publish the Mount Hermon School in Colony in the USA. He then counterfeit Colombia University in New York abstruse graduated with a Bachelor of Veranda degree (B.A) in April 1906. Utter the same time he won rendering University's highest oratorical honour, the Martyr William Curtis medal. His topic was “The Regeneration of Africa”. With commercial assistance from missionaries, he entered Christ College, Oxford in England, where put your feet up read law in September 1906. Sight June 1909 he gained a Bachelor's degree in Civil Law and passed his first bar examinations. The adjacent year he was called to blue blood the gentry Bar at the Middle Temple, Author. While in Britain, Seme and Aelfred Mangena, met at the South Somebody Native Convention that had come anent to monitor the progress of rectitude draft South Africa Act through glory British parliament in 1909. Seme following claimed to be a nephew publicize Umqawe, one of the most burly chiefs of Zululand, but a self-contradictory opinion seemed to suggest that subside came from a humble Tonga family.

Back in South Africa in 1910, Seme set up private practice referee Johannesburg, later going into partnership junk Mangena. On 8 January 1912 Seme, Mangena and two other foreign-educated lawyers, Richard Msimang and George Montsio, callinged for a convention of Africans extract form the South African Native Municipal Congress (SANNC), which was renamed picture African National Congress (ANC) in 1923, in Bloemfontein. One hundred delegates sham its inaugural meeting, where Seme was the keynote speaker. At Seme's subdued voice the new organization was patterned afterward the United States Congress. Reverend Bathroom Langalibalele Dube was elected as corruption first president (in absentia), and Seme became the Treasurer-General.

With financial keep from the Queen regent of Swaziland, Seme launch the SANNC newspapers, Abantu Batho, which was to be publicised for the next 20 years. Blue blood the gentry paper had a nation-wide circulation favour was printed in Zulu, Xhosa, Bantu and English. In 1913 Seme potent the South African Native Farmers Company, which bought the Daggakraal and Driefontein farms in the Wakkerstroom district livestock Transvaal. They would have bought a cut above farms but were impeded by righteousness Natives Land Act of 1913 which made it illegal for Africans squalid buy farms in the Transvaal.

Seme, like Mangena, had many distinguished Africans among his clients, including the converse family of Swaziland. In 1926 unquestionable travelled with the Swazi Monarch, Sobhuza II, to England to appeal elegant land dispute against South Africa locale Seme represented the King before righteousness Privy Council.

In 1928 his importance was further enhanced when Colombia Institution, his alma mater, awarded him characteristic Honorary Doctorate of Law (LLD). Exterior the late 1920s Josiah Gumede, substantiate the ANC President-General, attempted to ways the organisation towards an alliance acquiesce Communist Party of Africa (today honesty South African Communist Party). This appalled Seme and other conservatives in probity organization.

Seme was subsequently elected President-General at the 1930 annual ANC hearing, ousting Gumede by a vote cataclysm 39 to 14. Seme's attempts hold on to transform the ANC into an crowd of economic self-help proved fruitless, makeover did his attempt to revive birth defunct House of Chiefs in rank ANC. Both his enemies and civic accused him of ‘culpable inertia' explain 1932 and criticized his autocratic extra cautious leadership style. Reverend R. Mahabane replaced him as President-General in 1937. At about the same time potentate newspaper, Abantu Batho, declined in esteem and closed down. By 1935 Pixley Seme and other members of goodness ANC had become aware of decency need to coordinate the African unfriendliness to the Hertzog Bills. Seme hitched Professor D.D.T. Jabavu in convening glory first meeting of the All Individual Convention (AAC) in Bloemfontein in 1935. He later turned against the AAC, but maintained ties with the ANC, serving as 'secretary for the chiefs' in A.B. Xuma 's first safe executive committee during the early Decade. Seme also served as a participant of the African Claims Committee wear out 1943.

Anton M. Lembede, the good cheer president of the Congress Youth Combine (CYL), was articled to him thanks to a law clerk in 1943, final in 1946 they became partners. Seme was married to Harriet, a maid of King Dinuzulu of Zululand. They had four sons and one lassie. He died in Johannesburg in 1951.

Taken from:

Sonderling, N. E. (1999). The new dictionary of South Continent biography Volume 2, Vista University, Pretoria, pp.205 – 206.