Oberlin-Inanda: The life and times of John Dube

Mr. President I have come
To report to you
That South Africa
Is today free

When President Nelson Mandela said these words facing the grave of John Libangibalele Dube on the 21 April 1994, as he cast his vote in an all-race election in South Africa, he was both participating in and creating history. He became the first president of a free Republic of South Africa and also a torch-bearer of an 82 year political movement under the ANC.

In 1912, John Dube was elected the first president of the ANC (then called the South African Native National Congress), after it was formed the same year. It is quite symbolic that Mandela chose to cast his vote at the polling booth in the Ohlange High School, built by John Dube as a way of cultivating self-reliance and self-determination among his people. Now we can view this history through a documentary produced in 2006 entitled Oberlin-Inanda: The Life and Times of John Dube.

Oberlin-Inanda is produced and directed by the Carleton College professor of French, Cherif Keita. It weaves together the life of South Africa's pioneer educator, entrepreneur, and politician John L. Dube.

The documentary not only shows the incredible vision and energy Dube had but also the various transnational and trans-racial links that made his work so important to South Africa's cultural and political history.

In a presentation that is itself a personal journey for Keita, this documentary allows the viewer to witness the incredible determination that Dube had in using education as a tool to bring about pride and change among his people in Natal.

In a showing to a gathering of scholars meeting held in Lisle Illinois to discuss the role of US liberal arts institutions in promoting the study of Africa, Keita stated that he came upon this project through divine intervention.

A native of Mali himself, Keita has now become pat of the Dube family because of the time, resources, and social networks invested in producing the documentary.

He is working on a sequel that follows the story of William Wilcox who has historical connections to Northfield Minnesota where Keita currently resides.

Born in 1871 to a family of recent Christian converts, Dube was raised within a new frame of morality and sensibility but stayed rooted in his own Zulu culture. In his commitment to his own community, while aware of new avenues provided by this new Christian morality, Dube was able to bring about so much change for his own people.

When he had an opportunity to go to America in 1887 through the help of William Wilcox, an American missionary to the Zulu, Dube got his most important break in life. Keita notes that Wilcox was instrumental in Dube’s trip and stay in America.

As a missionary in Zululand, Wilcox was committed to the empowerment of the local people especially in his determination for Black clergy to take charge of their local congregations. It could be because of this commitment to self-realisation for Blacks that Wilcox recommended that Dube attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia which is famed as the alma mater of Booker T. Washington, who himself was committed to educating Southern Blacks in the US for self-employment and empowerment.

Dube asked Wilcox to help him get into Wilcox’s alma mater, Oberlin College, itself being historically significant because it is the first college in the US to admit women and Blacks. While Dube Dube did not go to Hampton, he ended up pursuing interests in technical training as did Booker T. Washington.

After leaving Oberlin College Dube had a short stint in New York where he was able to attend some lectures given by Booker T. Washington before returning to Zululand to start his own school in Inanda.

Upon returning to South Africa armed with funds raised from White American philanthropists, Dube built the Zulu Christian Industrial School which was later named Ohlange Institute. Arguably the school was modelled after the Tuskegee Institute built by Washington and celebrates some of the most influential South Africans in his time and beyond.

Keita’s documentary runs like a book, with the usual advantage of bringing in vivid images of the past together that he juxtaposes with those of today. He is able to show still photos of Dube, his school, and even some of the earlier versions of the school.

The documentary starts with a shot of Keita in Ohlange school talking to the current students about the history in which many of them may not have taken much interest. He takes the viewer through a series of chronological activities that followed Dube since he left Natal to go to the US and back.

There are a number of issues that Keita raises through this documentary. Throughout the narrative the viewer is aware of the role played by Dube’s networks among Whites in making his dream come true. In a post-apartheid South Africa, it is sometimes hard to realise the foundations of Dube’s success through the financial assistance of Whites but Keita gives us a story of courage, determination, and a struggle for the common good.

This is a must see documentary by those interested in cross-cultural issues and especially in South Africa’s higher education and its links to the US.

Produced and directed by Cherif Keita, 2006, 55 minutes, colour. Distributed by Villon Films, 4040 Ontario Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 3G5, Canada,

* Mwenda Ntarangwi, PhD, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, USA.

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