established in September 1928. Among its main objectives were to promote cooperation ‘between Europeans and Natives’; to investigate and report upon any matter relating ‘to the welfare of the Native peoples of South Africa to which the Council’s attention may be called’; and to make representation ‘to the Union Government, Provincial Administration, public bodies or individuals’.56
The list of council members included a number of church ministers, the rest being a mix of individuals involved in various trades. Among them were Robert Sello, ’Mote, Henderson Binda (trade unionist: ICU), J Crutse (teacher) and Jan Maraba (policeman). The non-militant approach of all except the trade unionists shaped the role of the council. By 1931, however, ’Mote was no longer a member, as is evident from correspondence between Charles F Martin Knight of the St Francis Priory and Rheinallt-Jones, in which Knight informs Rheinallt-Jones about ’Mote’s speech at a council meeting: ‘Rather a disturbed meeting of the Joint Council last night. ’Mote was introduced as a visitor and let off his usual hot-air. I doubt if he will be given another opportunity.’57
The absence of militancy in the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives was also possibly influenced by the presence of white members. Although the council’s constitution stipulated that whites should be in the majority in Kroonstad, this was not the case, although they did, as stipulated in the constitution, hold leadership positions. Like the Native Advisory Board, the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives had no real power to influence or change decisions of the town council. Its role could be likened to that of a pressure and lobby group, raising issues to put pressure on the local authority. For example, it took up the issue of trading rights for blacks in the locations, making representations to the Kroonstad Town Council and, later, to the OFS municipalities conference.58 It also made representations to the inquiry into native trading facilities in Kroonstad, which started on 5 September 1932, and sought to send a deputation to the minister of native affairs – who refused to meet it. While it discussed the issue of home-brewing in advance of the Illicit Liquor Commission’s report, it failed to mobilise the community (particularly African women brewing and selling beer) when the Kroonstad municipality decided to establish a municipal canteen system similar to those operating in Natal.
Differences in approach caused some of the blacks in the Joint Council of Europeans and Natives to feel that their white counterparts were controlling and dictatorial. In 1936 cracks in the Kroonstad Joint Council of Europeans and Natives began to show. In August 1937, Knight wrote to Rheinallt-Jones:
... in Kroonstad the type of European here is rather put off by the title Joint Council because he thinks it is a suggestion of what his ancestors called ‘ungodly equality’ ... It is true that the actual dissolution of the Kroonstad Joint Council was due to the defection of the Africans which made it impossible to carry on without doing them more harm than good. But there had always been a problem connected with European members.
In 1941 Father Amor, secretary of the Kroonstad Joint Council of Europeans and Natives, made the same point in a letter to Rheinallt-Jones:
I know how the Joint Council has faded away in the OFS. From the African side there was much desire to exploit the JCs for the purpose of getting things for themselves which were difficult or impossible in other ways ... And often Europeans also used their position in an endeavour to tell the Native what his place was and where he got off.
The political situation changed in 1944, partly as a result of the formation of the ANCYL, which radicalised the mother body. But before this, in 1942 the residents of the locations had heard enough. They supported Hyman Basner, a lawyer, to be elected to represent the interests of Africans in the senate and national assembly. After the passage of the Hertzog legislation in 1936, which removed Africans (in the Cape) from the common voters’ roll, Africans were from then on represented in parliament and in the senate by white elected native representatives. The residents of the locations could not restrain their excitement during the meeting addressed by Basner, and afterwards all those eligible to vote voted for Basner and not for Senator Rheinallt-Jones. Basner’s candidacy awakened the black teachers in the OFS, and through the OFSATA they began to look critically at the way the Department of Education treated them, for it did not treat them as professionals.59 OFSATA’s reputation grew, particularly after the election of AC Jordan to the presidency in 1943. ‘By 1945 it [was] the most militant [organisation] in the whole country’60 – but, even so, it was aloof from the masses. Unlike teachers’ organisations in the 1980s (such as the National Education Union of South Africa [NEUSA]), OFSATA did not coalesce its struggles with those of the community – but this should not be construed to mean that no teachers were political. Peter Molotsi, who studied at Bantu High (formerly Bantu United) in Kroonstad, and later became a founding member of the PAC, recalled that in the 1940s teachers at the school openly discussed politics with their students. In an interview, he said:
The members of the staff were people with a clear purpose, prepared to teach us and liberate us. They delivered two messages, the syllabus and its need and [our] purpose in life. Our teachers were so devoted that they actually taught beyond the syllabus: they taught our minds to satisfy the needs of the syllabus, but they then also prepared us as future citizens of a South Africa that would be free. They delivered the message of liberation.
It is possible that it was some of these politicised teachers who invited a member of the ANCYL to address teachers in 1949 and who cajoled teachers into taking a more militant approach. The political influence some of the teachers had over their students encouraged the students to form their own organisation, the branch of OFSASA (Orange Free State African Students Association) in Kroonstad. Molotsi recalled this association as a centre of conscientisation, which was giving students ‘knowledge not available in the school syllabus’. This helps to explain Molotsi’s early introduction to politics, leading to his active involvement in the struggle for liberation as a member of the PAC later in life.
Having won the election in 1948, the National Party passed a host of oppressive laws in the early 1950s, including the Bantu Education Act of 1953, which formally brought to an abrupt end the open involvement by teachers in opposition politics. According to Ntantala, OFSATA was at the time under the control of collaborators who welcomed Bantu Education. Certainly there is little evidence of black teachers in Kroonstad mobilising the community to protest its introduction, as was the case in other areas such as Benoni on the East Rand, and Alexandra north of Johannesburg. In an interview, Jonah Setiloane, who became one of the leading figures in OFSATA, conceded that OFSATA was not militant, but he refuted Ntantala’s assertion. He contended that under the circumstances the leadership had to adopt a challenging but restrained approach against the Department of Education. As did the SANNC before 1944, OFSATA believed in consultation. Jonah Setiloane confessed that this was why, after the introduction of Bantu Education, OFSATA ‘consulted with Pretoria to air our grievances, but many people didn’t understand that role’.
In spite of OFSATA’s stance, black teachers in Kroonstad did display some militancy, although in a different form. A few teachers, drawn to the politics of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), formed the Society of Young Africa (SOYA). AC Jordan, who by 1946 had moved to Cape Town and joined NEUM there, was instrumental in the formation of SOYA in Kroonstad. Parkies Setiloane, a former member of SOYA and teacher at Bantu High School recalls:
We didn’t pay a subscription fee to join SOYA; you just became a member. At the time the ANC was using boycotts, resistance, and all that to fight oppression. But SOYA was saying educate the masses first so that the masses must know their importance in society ... educate the people first politically; it’s then that you can take action. AC Jordan came up and lectured ... And then you had to buy stationery like The Awakening of a People by [Isaac] Tabata – he was from the Eastern Cape. We held meetings in Reverend Mahabane’s study room at the Methodist manse and discussed about oppression at the time. Sometimes we would attend conferences.
Evidently SOYA operated at an intellectual level. Although it managed to attract like-minded people,
