1867 - 1946

4th President-General of the African National Congress (ANC) (1927—1930), Co-owner of Abantu-Batho, Editor of Ilanga lase Natal, Co-Founder, Secretary and Vice-President of the Natal Native Congress, Founder member of the South African Native National Congress

Josiah Gumede was a leading South African figure for over 30 years, best known for advocating more militant policies to fight colonial oppression.

In his early years he was a singer and pianist who toured Europe as a member of a Zulu choir in 1892, travels that effectively ended an early teaching career. By 1906 he owned land and led a delegation to Britain to negotiate land rights for the baSotho people.

Gumede became ANC president-general despite criticism of the pro-communist tendencies that surfaced in his speeches. After attending an international conference of liberation movements in Brussels in 1927, he was the first ANC leader to visit the Soviet Union. This trip marked a watershed in Gumedes political thinking and he returned to South Africa declaring, I have seen the new Jerusalem!

Dispute and discord characterized much of his three-year presidency and he was replaced by the more conservative Pixley kaIsaka Seme.

Gumedes political viewpoints were vindicated after his death when the ANC adopted a more militant Programme of Action in 1949, promoting a path of revolutionary action he had called for two decades earlier.

Did You Know?

Gumedes sculpture is carrying the book The Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey under his arm. He was heavily influenced by the Jamaican-born writer who was president-general of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, the largest mass movement in African-American history. Garvey believed in the redemption of motherland Africa and promoted the sub-title of the book Africa for the Africans.