BUD-MBELLE, HORATIO

Horatio Isaiah Bud-Mbelle (circa 1870-1947), was an educator as well as a militant African leader who at one time was secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC).

He was born at Burgersdorp in the Cape Colony, and grew up in Herschel district, in the Eastern Cape, where both Sesotho and Nguni languages are spoken. He was educated at Healdtown Institution where he qualified as a teacher, and thereafter taught for five years at Herschel and Colesburg.

Since Bud-Mbelle was fluent in Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Tswana, English, and Afrikaans, he became a court interpreter. He was employed as an interpreter at the Supreme Court, Grahamstown, and later at the Supreme Court of Griqualand West High Court at Kimberley. He studied privately for the civil service law examinations and would have qualified as a magistrate, had Africans been eligible for appointments to the bench.

He also took interest in church work, and was for many years a steward in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Kimberley. He left Kimberley for Johannesburg to become an agent and later superintendent, of a white-owned insurance company named SANLAM, later of major importance in the insurance field.

Bud-Mbelle served as secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1917 to 1919. He was a militant leader who in Johannesburg in March and April 1919 succeeded in organizing several thousands of Africans into a massive demonstration against the pass laws. The demonstration grew out of widespread and bitter resentment against these laws. Picketers collected people’s passes in sacks and marched to the pass office to protest to a government official. The demonstration was peaceful, but when the police arrived they suddenly spurred their horses and charged the crowd. Bud-Mbelle and the other ANC leaders were arrested for organizing the demonstration.

The ANC was weakened when militant leaders like Bud-Mbelle had to withdraw from politics to earn a living. His work as a government translator or interpreter could not be regarded as being in the interest of his people. The case of Bud-Mbelle provides one of several examples of African men of talent who were obliged to withdraw from executive responsibility to take on stable careers in the mainstream of South African government.

Bud-Mbelle took great interest in the education of the Africans and was active in establishing schools in Kimberley. He was the author of The Xhosa Scholar, and was the founder of the Pretoria Advisory Board. He died in Pretoria in 1947.

MOLAPATENE RAMUSI