DC40/NAMM/0033

The purpose was to bring unrest dissatisfaction between black and white students to rest, as Totius statue was erected in full body at the front of Law building a year before Sol Plaatjie was. Black students felt that the whites were taken as the first priority and superior, imbalance in academia administration. The erection of Half Sol Plaatjie was to bring peace between black and white students. It automatically came to rest because the blacks were minority at the institution inclusive of their financial challenges. Blacks then were quickly to be financially assisted so that they can be quiet.  Plaatje was born in Doornfontein near Boshof, Orange Free State (now Free State Province, South Africa), the sixth of eight sons. His grandfather's name was Selogilwe Mogodi (1836-1881) but his employer, the Boer farmer Groenewald, nicknamed him Plaatjie ('Picture') in 1856 and the family started using this as a surname. His parents Johannes and Martha were members of the Tswana nation. They were Christians and worked for missionaries at mission stations in South Africa. When Solomon was four, the family moved to Pniel near Kimberley in the Cape Colony to work for a German missionary, Ernst Westphal, and his wife Wilhelmine. There he received a mission- education. When he outpaced fellow learners he was given additional private tuition by Mrs. Westphal, who also taught him to play the piano and violin and gave him singing lessons. In February 1892, aged 15, he became a pupil-teacher, a post he held for two years. He was a founder member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), which would become the African National Congress (ANC) ten years later. As a member of an SANNC deputation, he traveled to England to protest against the Natives Land Act, 1913, and later to Canada and the United States where he met Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois. Fluent in at least seven languages, he worked as a court interpreter during the Siege of Mafeking, and translated works of William Shakespeare into Tswana. His talent for language would lead to a career in journalism and writing.