Gumede: a legend of the struggle
As part of a series on the heroes honoured in eThekwini’s new street and building names, Nompilo Mkhwanazi & Nokuthula Vezi profiles Josiah Gumede.
Josiah Gumede, formerly Old Main Road Pinetown
JOSIAH GUMEDE, a liberation era pioneer, teacher, businessman and journalist was born in Natal in 1870 and died in 1947. He moved to Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape where he completed his schooling. He began a teaching career spanning several years at Somerset East in what is now the Western Cape.
His life took a new direction when he resigned from his teaching job and moved back to the province of his birth where he was appointed advisor to traditional leaders in Natal and the Orange River Colony, now the Free State.
Gumede was known as a good singer and pianist, and had toured Europe as a member of a Zulu Choir.
On his return, he became an estate agent in the Pietermaritzburg region. He owned land and was also an astute tradesman. In 1906, he laid claims to territory in the Orange River Colony on behalf of various Basuto chiefs, also leading a delegation to Britain to bargain for compensation.
For leaving Natal without a pass (for which he had applied but had not been granted) he was arrested and fined 10 pounds or 3 months in prison on his return. With Z.M. Masuku, he co-signed the constitution of Iliso Lesizwe Esimnyama, The Eye of the Black Nation, an organisation of Wesleyan Methodist converts and chiefs. The organisation was formed in the Dundee and Newcastle area of Natal in 1907.
In 1927, Gumede was elected as President-General of the ANC at its annual congress, despite ANC criticism of the procommunist tendencies that often surfaced in Gumede’s public rhetoric. Dispute and discord characterised much of his three year term, but it did bring positive changes and a strong military attitude to the organisation.
At the April 1930 ANC election, Pixley ka Seme succeeded him as president general, by a vote of 39 to 14. This ended Gumede’s role as prominent figure in South African politics. In recognition of his earlier services to the ANC, he was however, appointed as lifelong honorary president of the organisation.
Source: South African History Online