The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 263, Mar. 1897, U. of Illinois Press

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MARC H · I 8 9 7 My friend Mrs. Mitchell told me of you & your work. I am very much interested in just the same work that you are for my people the Zulus of So. Africa. I am here preparing to return & start a school of an industrial character among them. I desire to have an interview with you for I wish to visit both Hampton and Tuskegee before my return to my native land. I heard through my friends that you are to speak at Dr. Gregg's ch. tonight but I am engaged far the evening and cannot possibly see you. Are you to be any where in Greater N.Y. tomorrow Monday & at what time cart I call upon you? Please drop me a card early to-morrow morning so that I may have the pleasure of seeing you. If you will read this note before the bearer has left you can tell him the time you will be at leasure to see me. Trusting for a favorable response tomorrow I am Sir Yours truly John L. Dube ALS Con. :~7 BI-W Papers DLC. ~ John Langalibalele Dube (~87~-~946), educator, journalist, and politician, was often called the ''Booker T. Washington of South Africa.'' His grandmother Dalida Dube was one of the first black converts to Christianity in South Africa. Dube's father was a Congregational minister of Inanda Church in the 1870s and an influential Zulu spokesman. Educated at Natal and then at Oberlin College from 1887 to 189a, John Dube returned to Africa and established several native schools at Incwadi, Natal. He returned to the United States in 1897 and visited Hampton and Tuskegee during the summer. He was ordained a Congregationalist minister in New York City in 1899. Returning to Natal, in egos Dube established at Ohlange the Zulu Christian Industrial School, modeled after Tuskegee, with financial assistance from white philanthropists in America. In 1903 Dube founded and edited Ilanga lase Natal (Sun of Natal), one of the first black-oriented newspapers in his country. Through his paper Dube often criticized the government for unjust policies regarding the Zulus. Dube founded the Natal Native Congress, the central political organization of the Zulus, and after the Bambata Rebellion in 1906, was a founder of the South African Native Congress, later called the African National Congress. For several years Dube was a leader in protests against the increasing racism in South Africa. In many ways Dube's career paralleled that of BTW, and he often appeared in contradictory roles. An advocate of industrial education and political accommodation, Dube nevertheless was an important force in shaping the lives of more militant and independent Africans such as James Gumede, president of the African National Congress in the Woos and a leading South African Communist. In 19 Dube founded the Bantu Business League, whose aims closely followed those of :13TW's National Negro Business League. 263