• Member of the Mayoral Committee and Chairperson for Community Services, Roads and Parks in the City of Johannesburg, Councillor Christine Walters
• Chairperson of the Board of Directors in City Parks, Pumla Radebe
• Members of the Johannesburg Mayoral Committee
• Members of the Board of Johannesburg City Parks
• The Managing Director of Johannesburg City Parks, Luther Williamson and his Executive Team
• The Director of Arts and Culture, Steven Sack
• Dignitaries from the ANC
• Representatives from the Sontonga and Rabotapi Families
• Reverend Cedric Mayson
• Representatives from the Media
• Children from the Sparrow School
• The Ikhwezi Chorale
• distinguished guests

I am honoured to be part of this occasion organized by the Johannesburg Municipal Council.

Former President Nelson Mandela unveiled this memorial as a tribute to Enoch Sontonga, here at the Braamfontein Cemetery, on National Heritage Day, 1996. The Johannesburg City Parks, the greening and cemetery agency of the City today celebrate Enoch Sontonga’s contribution to African unity, and indeed to the healing of our own country today, the centenary of Sontonga’s burial at this site.

Throughout the world monuments are erected to recognize the role of specific men and women whose life’s work has made a contribution to the destiny of their societies and country. There is probably no other South African whose life has left as indelible an imprint on twentieth century African history as Enoch Sontonga.

A man of rather humble origins, who was born at Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape in 1873, Enoch Sontonga was educated at Lovedale, just outside Alice. He was trained as a teacher and obtained a teacher’s post at a Methodist Primary School at Nancefiled, here in Johannesburg when he completed his studies.

A gifted musician, he organized a choir which he trained and conducted at his school. It was while posted at Nancefield that he composed what he considered a hymn for Africa, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” in 1897. The hymn was probably sung many times by the choir he had set up before its first recorded public performance in 1899 on the occasion of the ordination of Reverend Boweni, from the Limpopo province, as a Minister of the Methodist Church.

Sontonga died very young, aged 32, and was buried here.

There was no way that Sontonga and his choir could have anticipated the massive impact his composition would have on South Africa, the Southern African region and countries as far afield as Kenya.. Even after his untimely death his choir continued to perform the hymn in the then Transvaal and Natal, making a huge impression on African audiences. It was inevitable that the hymn was sung at Mangaung, Bloemfontein on 9th January 1912, the second day of the inaugural conference of the African National Congress.

Because the founding of the ANC had such a wide-ranging regional impact, inspiring the establishment of sister organizations in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho and later, Namibia, everywhere the ANC was emulated, the song it had adopted as its anthem was sung. Thus the first anthem of independent Tanzania was “Nkosi Sikelela” in Swahili; Zambia used the tune composed by Sontonga for its national anthem. Zimbabwe, until recently, also used “Nkosi Sikelela”, sung in Shona. Namibia too adopted it as its anthem, rendered in its indigenous languages.

In South Africa , Sontonga’s hymn played a central role in forging a single national identity, as opposed to the ethnic and tribal identities the colonial and apartheid regimes sought to foist on us. The hymn’s pan-African vision was not lost on others on the continent, hence its ready acceptance and adoption by nations beyond our borders. In 1992, during a visit to the USA, we heard an African-American version performed by a congregation in Philadelphia!

It is our collective responsibility, as the gatekeepers of our arts, culture and heritage, to ensure that the memory of these great African luminaries who have shaped Africa’s destiny is kept alive for future generations, Ceremonies like that of today help to imprint their names and their deeds on our collective memory.

Every one of us, as patriotic Africans, has a moral responsibility to ensure that our national symbols are recognized, acknowledged and celebrated. The name of ENOCH MANKAYI SONTONGA is among those national icons.

Nkosi Sikelela was first recorded on 16 October 1923 by Solomon T Plaatje accompanied by Sylvia Colenso on the piano. Samuel E K Mghayi, the famous poet and writer, wrote a further seven verses. In 1927 the Lovedale Press, in the Eastern Cape, published all the verses in a pamphlet form . It was included in the Presbyterian Xhosa hymn book, “Incwadi Yamaculo ase-Rabe” in 1929.

It was also published in a newspaper, Umteteli Wa Bantu on 11 June 1927 and in a Xhosa poetry book for schools.

The National African Federated Chambers of Commerce, (NAFCOC) instituted a search for Sontonga’s burial place in 1987. By 1990 their search had revealed that he was buried here in Braamfontein. The National Monuments Council only became aware of that fact in 1994.

The purpose of locating the grave was to honour the memory of Sontonga. After 1994 government intensified the drive to have it declared as a national monument, which is the highest honour that can be bestowed on a site of such historical and cultural significance.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to locate Sontonga’s grave in Braamfontein cemetery. However, it was not until Hal Shaper of Cape Town prompted the cemetery officials to look for an entry in the burial register under Enoch, rather than Sontonga, and to look at burial records for 1905, that success was achieved.

The register at Bramfontein lists the date of burial as 19 April 1905 in Plot No. 4885. Confirmation that this is indeed the grave of Enoch Sontonga was subsequently found in a notice in “Imvo Zabantsundu” which states that Enoch Sontonga had died unexpectedly on 18 April 1905 in Johannesburg.

There is a saying: “Whom the Gods love die young”. Sontonga, died extremely young. But there can be no doubt that he was amongst those favoured by the Almighty. His hymn, lives on and has been immortalized as South Africa’s National Anthem and that of many other African countries., No greater tribute could be paid to a man of such vision.

Z. Pallo Jordan
April 2005.

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