Sol Plaatje House

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a Maralong of the Mabina-Noto Clan of the Baralong tribe, and was born in 1875, near Boskop, Orange Free State. He and his family were loyal adherents of the Lutheran Church, and he obtained his early education at the Pniel Mission Station, under the late Rev. G.E. Westphol, a Lutheran missionary. Leaving Pniel, he became a post messenger at Kimberley; but he continued to study and later passed the Cape Civil Service examination.

Thereafter he was employed at Mafeking, as Court Interpreter and Magistrate's Clerk, holding that appointment during the Siege of Mafeking. He was interpreter in Dutch to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction at Mafeking, presided over by Lord Edward Cecil; and he acted as interpreter for the Right Honourable Joseh Chamberlain, the Imperial Colonial Secretary, who visited Mafeking after the Anglo-Boer War, and later became Editor of the newspaper "Koranta ea Bechuana," an English-Sechuana weekly financed by the late Chief Silas Molema, father of Dr. Molema, of Mafeking. A few years later he became Editor of the Kimberley newspaper "Tsala ea Batho", owned by a Batho syndicate and Thaba 'Nchu. When the African National Congress was incepted he was appointed General Corresponding Secretary under Rev. John. L Dube's presidency, and was a member of the Congress delegation to England just before the outbreak of the Great War.

 Private Bag X895, Pretoria, 0001,

South Africa, Sol Plaatje House, 123 Schoeman Street, Pretoria,

Tel: 012-312 5911, fax: 012-321 6770 .