The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

follow the advice of Anthony Sampson and Oxford Africanist scholar, Margery Perham,
and begin research in 1961 on the history of the ANC. For a whole year, Benson
interviewed ANC activists, past and present, around South Africa. Much of the research
that Benson had undertaken was biographical in nature and method. She had already
written a biography of Tshekedi Khama 235 and was preparing another on Albert
Luthuli. 236 Once again, the issues of leadership and the characteristics and peculiarities of
individual personalities and personages featured centrally in the research of this self‐
confessed “born celebrity hunter”. 237
Benson’s book which flowed from this research was a chronological account of the history
of the ANC organised and periodised into the now well‐worn narrative which looked at
early, moderate forms of political expression and subsequent processes of radicalisation. 238
Each stage of the heroic narrative of resistance history constructed by Benson contained a
list of mini‐biographies and personality profiles of ANC political leaders over the years.
Considered together, these biographical profiles and lists of the personal attributes and
actions of individual ANC leaders formed a large and interesting collection.
While Pixley ka Isaka Seme had a “polish and a taste for nobility” given to him by Oxford,
the Reverend Zaccheus Mahabane was “thoughtful, and slow speaking, sparely built, with
a round, jolly face”. 239 A.B. Xuma was “a small lively man with bright large eyes”, while
Anton Lembede was “arrogant yet disarming, aggressive so that he made enemies yet
with an unusual ability to laugh at himself”. 240 The Reverend James Calata seemed to
make a deep impression:
[Of] restrained personality, he had fire; a steadfast Christian, he
was a patriot to the marrow of his bones; conservative, he had
nerve and, clear‐brained, he had a capacity for hard work. 241
235 Mary Benson, Tshekedi Khama, London: Faber, 1960.
236 This was published as Chief A Luthuli of South Africa, London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
237 Mary Benson, A Far Cry, p 21.
238 Mary Benson, The African Patriots; See Footnote 164.
239 Mary Benson, The African Patriots, pp 25, 55.
240 Mary Benson, The African Patriots, pp 96; 103.
241 Mary Benson, The African Patriots, p 86.
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