“Black is beautiful” was a rallying cry of the late 1960s and early 1970s, popularised by rising black liberation struggle activists of the time, and would soon be propagated by great black students’ leadership in black campuses and later in the country.
Proponents of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), as an answer to black oppression and lack of opportunities, sprung up like mushrooms, and would be led by university students including Steve Biko, Barney Pityana and Mamphela Ramphela, among others.
At the time of this black awareness resurgence, the BCM in the country became a grassroots anti-apartheid formation to close the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress leadership, incarcerated on Robben Island and elsewhere across the country.
The quest for black excellence and consciousness were concepts inspired by black leaders throughout the world where black people suffered oppression and exclusion from the mainstream economy and political development – treated as if they were pariahs by the established white system.
Marcus Garvey, an exponent of Pan Africanism and one of the greatest Jamaican political and social activists of our time, taught the world that black skin should not translate into “a badge of shame, but rather a glorious of national greatness”, adding that “if you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated”.
These words were inspirational to black people, giving them a leg-up in the struggle for their own emancipation and liberation.
Both Biko and Pityana taught that “black man [woman] you are on your own”.
The expression denotes that black people should develop the capacity to be independent, and to believe that their liberation is depended on them, not any other external agencies – and should be led by them, and by extension that they have the capacity to run their affairs effectively, if they put their mind and heart to it.
This was to be underscored by words used by former president Nelson Mandela on his 90th birthday when he called for “new hands”, to throngs of well-wishers in Hyde Park, London.
“It is in your hands … to lift the burdens that plague the people of the world,” the great statesman said.
Significant words these were, but the question facing us today is: do we have the capacity to use the words as a torchlight in our context, and concretize them in pursuit of justice for communities?
Do we have in truthful and trusted political leadership to carry out the mandate to serve the electorate communities with dedication and distinction?
Black man you are on your own!
These are words that rallied black people together to strive for the firmament of goodness and success in whatever human endeavour – including good governance.
We must remember them, and they must prompt us to know that they represent, black excellence and not mediocrity, and that it is inexcusable for black leaders to mess up and behave in a manner that contradicts the words as profound as those that remind us that “black is beautiful”.
On the passing of the R65-billion eThekwini/Durban metro budget allocation, the TikTok App carried a video in which Durban councillors were in high spirits, breaking into song and toyi-toying, apparently happy about the “windfall” or the largesse.
The idea of black excellence notion must spell it out that the eThekwini budget allocation is not for the use of councillors, and so there is no reason for joyfulness displayed in the video.
It is, on the contrary, meant to advance black agenda of excellence, not for looting purposes. Black excellence contradicts malfeasance, it promotes human development in all its facets.
Back to where we began.
If black is to be beautiful – if black people are to achieve excellence, they must be driven by the desire to act ethically, especially when they are entrusted with the role of being the stewards of resources to empower society, particularly poor black people.
Mediocrity and theft of the national purse and depletion of country’s resources is antithetical to black excellence.
The notion of “black is beautiful” must inspire black leadership to reach the firmaments of goodness and excellence – attributes that will ensure progress and justice is manifest in all areas of governance.
The black people entrusted with positions of leadership must strive towards regaining their humanity and learn to be good stewards of the vineyard and debunk the notion that public service is synonymous with stealing and self-help.
- Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, an Anglican priest, ex-trade unionist and former editor of the SA Human Rights Commission journals.
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