Sol Plaatje (1876 – 1932) was a journalist, editor, human rights campaigner, politician, novelist and translator at the turn of the 19th century – one of the most gifted and versatile black South Africans of his generation. He devoted his many talents to one overriding cause; the struggle of the African people against injustice and dispossession, becoming the first General Corresponding Secretary of the South African Native National Congress when it was formed in 1912.