John Tengo Jabavu, the founder of one of South Africa’s first Black-language newspapers, Imvo Zabantsundu (Native/Bantu Opinion) and political leader died in Cape Town on 10 September 1921.
Jabavu was born on 11 January, 1859, near the Methodist Mission School in the Healdtown district.
He made friends with James Rose-Innes, who later became chief justice of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
Rose-Innes saw in Jabavu a great man of the future, and through him and others he found the newspaper
that Jabavu had founded, and become editor of, in 1884. At the age of only 24, Jabavu opened an office in King William’s Town in 1886. He put his whole life into his work and soon his paper was known and read throughout South Africa.
He was the father of Davidson Don Jabavu, the first Black professor at the University of Fort Hare.
He died at the home of one of his sons in Fort Hare on 10 September 1921. His second son, Alexander, took over the editorship of the newspaper.
Information sourced from: South African History Online.
