By Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu

IF we repeatedly refer to the correspondence by some black people to Southern Rhodesia’s post-1923 administration, it is because they were by far more literate than the indigenous blacks.
In addition to that, they had a clearer understanding of the objectives and operations of the newly-installed settler-administration than local blacks because of their Cape Colony experience.
However, some local black people could most easily identify their grievances which ranged from violently imposed taxes to displacement and dispossession, to say nothing about black racial discrimination, also referred to as ‘colour bar’, in their social, cultural, economic and political pursuits.
Attempts had been made by a South African-based black trade union leader, Clement Kadallie, to start a branch of his organisation, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, (ICWU), in Southern Rhodesia.
He sent one of his lieutenants, Robert Sambo, to launch a branch in Salisbury, but the Rhodesian administration deported Sambo. Attempts to reverse that decision failed.
Kadallie later sent a Southern Rhodesian-born, Masotsha Ndlovu, to launch an ICWU branch.
Ndlovu did that in Bulawayo in June 1928.
He had recruited two well-known activists, Job Dumbutshena and Charles Mzingeli (Nkomo), to be his assistants. Dumbutshena was sent to Gatooma (Kadoma) to organise a Midlands branch there and Mzingeli to Salisbury (Harare) to do the same in that city and Mashonaland.
Ndlovu himself was based in Bulawayo.
He soon adopted ‘Sergeant’ as his first name.
In about 1930, Sergeant Masotsha Ndlovu became the ICWU secretary-general.
The ICWU, sooner rather than later, dropped the word ‘Workers’, and was popularly called ‘ICU’ (I see you).
That organisation became a source of much inspiration for subsequent workers’ organisations throughout Southern Rhodesia.
One of those trade union bodies was called the Federation of Bulawayo Workers’ Union (FBWU).
It held a very well-attended conference at the city’s Stanley Hall from October 29-30 1949.
The conference passed 10 resolutions and later became a nucleus of the Southern Rhodesia Trade Union Congress (SRTUC).
The fourth resolution was a response to the loss of land by the black people.
It stated: “That simultaneous by/with the loss of land tenure in reserve by urban Africans, freehold stand be set aside in urban areas for the said Africans to purchase.”
The 10th and last resolution called for black female factory workers to become FBWU members.
It declared: “That in view of the fact that as many as 237 African women are employed in factories side-by-side with men, this conference resolves that they shall be organised and become members of our unions.”
These two resolutions played a significant role in the country’s future urban land tenure laws and in the part played by some black women in the liberation struggle through trade unionism.
The current Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Minister, Eunice Sandi Moyo, became a trade union leader before joining the armed liberation struggle.
Another organisation formed by purely local black people after the 1923 granting of ‘internal self-Government’ to the white settlers by the British Government was the Southern Rhodesia Native Association (SRNA).
Launched in Salisbury in 1928, the SRNA’s president was A. S. Chirimuta (some historians called him Chirimuhuta), and his deputy was J.N. Sinyoka.
The secretary-general was Walter D. Chipwaya while the general treasurer was G. M’kumbi.
The SRNA had branches in Fort Victoria (Masvingo) and Umtali (Mutare).
The Fort Victoria branch was headed by Z. Zimuto as chairman, and the Umtali one by the Rev. Thomas Marange.
Both these were officially known as ‘district’ branches.
The SRNA became an integral part of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress when Jacha Rusike founded that political organisation in 1934.
That organisation’s original name was the Southern Rhodesia Bantu Congress (SRBC).
South Africa’s Professor D.J. Jabavu sent Jacha Rusike a copy of the constitution of the African National Congress (ANC) to help him reproduce that in Southern Rhodesia.
It is important to remember that it was Jacha Rusike’s SRBC that promoted this country’s black people’s interests from the late 1930s up to February 1959 when it was outlawed by Sir Edgar Whitehead’s regime.
Another organisation that played an important role in highlighting the suffering and the promoting of black people’s socio–economic aspiration was Benjamin Burombo’s British African National Voice Association (BANVA).
The fearless Burombo prominently participated in the historic April 15 1948 Bulawayo general strike.
He vigorously campaigned against the 1950-51 Land Husbandry Act, and was arrested on several occasions.
Burombo died in 1958 at Morgenster Mission Hospital after a short illness.
His organisation had been banned in 1952.
Burombo left a great legacy among those he assisted to oppose the country’s racialist land laws.
A man of rudimentary education, he was helped by the Rev. Percy Ibbotson of the Bulawayo Methodist Church who explained to him what relevant land laws’ objectives were.
The era immediately after the banning of Benjamin Burombo’s organisation was hectic throughout southern Africa.
In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) was in the middle of its historic ‘Defiance Campaign’; in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Harry Nkumbula’s ANC was actively calling for parity in that country’s legislative council; in Nyasaland (Malawi), the ANC was most vigorously campaigning against Southern Rhodesian Government-initiated plan to bring together the three then Central African British territories (Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland) together into a Federation.
In South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, black people were politically behind their brothers and sisters in the territories north of the Zambezi River.
Those countries like Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana), Basutholand (Lesotho) and Swaziland were British protectorates and were being prepared for independence sooner rather than later.
South Africa had become independent in 1910 as the Union of South Africa following the amalgamation of the Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal also called the South African Republic (SAR), and the Orange Free State.
The Cape and Natal had been British colonies before amalgamation.
The Transvaal and the Free State had been under Boer administrations.
It was quite clear by then (1952) that it would be extremely difficult to democratise South Africa.
The same would be the case with South West Africa (now Namibia), a former League of Nations territory mandated to South Africa.
Southern Rhodesia was accorded some special treatment by the British Government.
Its prime minister, Sir Godfrey Huggins, was officially invited to the Commonwealth Heads-of-State conference, albeit as an observer without a voice.
He was, however, consulted on relevant matters such as the projected Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also referred to as the Central African Federation.
It was to one of the federal consultative conferences that Sir Godfrey Huggins invited Joshua Nkomo, then employed by the Rhodesia Railways as a social welfare officer.
Two other black people, journalists Mike Masotsha Hove and Jasper Zengeza Savanhu, were also invited.
The three accompanied Sir Huggins and his high-powered team of white politicians to London where a difference of approach immediately appeared among the three Southern Rhodesia invited blackmen.
Nkomo was for consultation of the majority of the black population back home.
Hove and Savanhu seemed to have no opinion of their own and looked up to Sir Huggins for guidance.
Nkomo’s opinion was thus ignored when the Federation was imposed on September 12 1953.
Hove and Savanhu were duly rewarded by being given diplomatic posts, Hove in Lagos, Nigeria, and Savanhu as a press attaché in London.
Nkomo’s most difficult, long political haul had just begun.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo – based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through email. sgwakuba@gmail.com