The African World, 1925

In honor of the centennial of The African World, the outspoken newspaper of the African National Congress’s provincial branch in the Western Cape of South Africa, here are the first four issues, dated May 23 to June 20, 1925.

I was fortunate to stumble across these in the South African National Archives in Pretoria (JUS 915, 1/18/26, Part 3). The paper is brittle, and some of the edges have started to crumble, so I photographed them as carefully as I could and thought I would make them available for other researchers as well, even if these are not professional-quality images.

The African World, Volume 1, Issue 1, May 23, 1925:

The African World, Volume 1, Issue 2, May 30, 1925:

The African World, Volume 1, Issue 3, June 13, 1925:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The African World, Volume 1, Issue 4, June 20, 1925:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A document archived along with the newspaper explains how these four issues came to be filed away in Pretoria: A police officer in the Criminal Investigation Department bought them at ANC protests in Cape Town, thought they constituted illegal incitement of racial unrest, and passed them along to his superiors. The South African Police kept a large file on James Thaele, who was president of the ANC’s Western Cape branch and editor of The African World, but I have not come across any indication that charges were brought against him or this publication, or that the publication was ordered to stop. In any case, The African World soon ceased publication on its own.