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, especially teachers, it also had a few members who were not teachers but were equally educated. SOYA’s lifespan, however, was short. During the action-oriented period of the 1950s (1952 was the start of the defiance campaign) the masses no longer tolerated the political debates and discussions in which SOYA had immersed itself. They wanted action. Some of SOYA’s members felt the same way. Parkies Setiloane explains:
What did not impress me about SOYA was that it was highly critical of the ANC. We never took action in SOYA like the ANC. We never took part in the defiance campaign ... SOYA would argue that they [the ANC] are wisening up the white man to come up with more stringent laws. We said let’s hit them where it hurts the most, which was educating the masses. And then take action once! We would target labourers, teachers, ministers – everybody. And once we embarked on a strike action there’ll be a standstill.
SOYA’s intention to ‘educate the masses’ remained only an idea. It was never implemented. Finally, some of its members, among them Parkies Setiloane, left the location – in his case for a teaching post on the farms – and SOYA ceased to function in Kroonstad. But SOYA’s demise should also be read in the context of the state’s attempt to curtail black incitement and protest. For instance, in 1953 the government passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which increased the penalties for civil disobedience, incitement and protest.
The revival of radical politics
Although the rolling out of the defiance campaign in 1952, led mainly by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress, did not produce the same extraordinary response in Kroonstad as it did in some areas of the Eastern Cape like Port Elizabeth and East London, it nevertheless helped to revive the ANC in the locations. Residents, ostensibly members of the ANC, embarked on mass political mobilisation and demonstrations – albeit briefly. From oral evidence it is apparent that before or during the campaign ANC leaders visited Kroonstad, a visit possibly prompted by a lack of action in the town’s locations during the ANC’s call for a national stay-at-home on 26 June 1950.61 Recalling the visit, Mekodi Arcilia Morailane (now Mokoena), who was born in 1946 in Bloemfontein and had moved to Kroonstad by 1952, remembered seeing Walter Sisulu (during this period the ANC’s only full-time paid official). It was not long after this visit that Amon Mahomane, Esther Montshiwa and Joseph Ditaole Lenong led a demonstration to the municipal offices to complain about the excessive number of whites working in municipal offices, increased rent, and the proposed ejection of all unmarried young men from their homes in the locations to be housed in municipal hostels.
The news of a reputable law firm owned by Africans seems to have boosted the confidence of the black residents of Kroonstad to fight for their rights. The residents of the locations became aware of the Mandela and Tambo law firm, which was established in 1951, when Oliver Tambo travelled to Kroonstad to represent Mphikeleli Maseko, a prominent businessman in the area. Maseko had shot and killed a thief. Leboseng Violet Selele, Maseko’s daughter, described the event: ‘My father was involved in an incident. There were certain boys fighting with knives, trying to abduct my sister by force. My father intervened and shot and killed one of those boys. My father was arrested. And that was a problem. So my husband and I gathered some money to help where we could. Then we heard about Mandela and Oliver Tambo.’ Maseko was acquitted. This served as encouragement to the residents of the locations – even if they were arrested there were African lawyers who would represent them (Selele recalls that during this period the only lawyers in Kroonstad were Afrikaners).
Some teachers, even those at the day-care level, were becoming politically conscious, illustrating an awareness that bordered on radicalism, as is evident from what they taught. Morailane remembers that at her day-care,