The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

Biography also provided the basis of attempts by the McGregor Museum in Kimberley to
add new histories on to their old exhibits as part of the process of “depict[ing] all the
people in the province”. In this ‘add‐on’ approach to transformation, the museum “added
snippets of information and occasional portraits of Kimberley’s blacks into existing
displays of Kimberley’s Firsts and Kimberley’s Personalities”. 42 The Albany Museum in
Grahamstown also tried to carve a post‐apartheid position for itself by producing a
biographical directory of Eastern Cape African leaders as part of its “New History”
series. 43 Instead of a focus merely on white history and “the glorification of one group and
its heroes at the expense of others”, the objective of the new series was to introduce the
“linked histories of all the people of the eastern Cape”. The biographical directory, the
second publication in the series, was an initiative to “provide basic information about
some of the Black people who have made a major contribution to South African society
and who hail from the eastern Cape”, and to “document our leaders before they are
forgotten”. The result was a focus on what was described as “Xhosa leadership”. 44
Trapped within these racial and ethnic premises for the production of history, the
directory consisted of an alphabetised gallery of ANC leaders with a few PAC or Black
Consciousness figures thrown in. The directory also contained profiles of “royal”
leadership from precolonial times. In the view of then Eastern Cape Premier and former
Rivonia trialist, Raymond Mhlaba, the publication was to be commended for “bridging
the gap ... between the known leadership and the royalty and leadership of yester‐year”. 45
In order to place the biographical sketches in a “time framework and context”, a timeline
was provided, showing “the major historical and political events from c.600 AD to 2
February 1990”. There is also a “general historical directory” which gave information on
“the major organisations and ideologies” to which it referred. 46
42 Leslie Witz, Gary Minkley and Ciraj Rassool, ‘Who Speaks for South African Pasts?’, p 14.
43 David R Owen, Ubukhosi Neenkokeli: A Directory of Eastern Cape Black Leaders from c. 1700 to 1990,
Grahamstown: Albany Museum, 1994.
44 David Owen, Ubukhosi Neenkokeli, front cover; pp 7‐13.
45 Foreward to David Owen, Ubukhosi Neenkokeli, p 5.
46 David Owen, Ubukhosi Neenkokeli, p 13.
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