‘I am a bad native’: Masculinity and marriage in the biographies of Clements Kadalie

ABSTRACT

Over the course of the 1920s, Clements Kadalie (c.1895–1951) espoused a radical new form of black masculinity that rejected white oversight, disparaged the ‘hypocrisies’ of colonial ‘civilisation’, and spurned the established patriarchal practices of other black organisations. As ‘bad boy’ trade unionists, Kadalie and other leaders of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa were condemned for their bad language and ‘debaucheries’, but many of these so-called ‘faults’ were also key to their success as populist leaders of the first mass-member black organisation in southern African history. After Kadalie resigned as general secretary of the ICU, however, he came to see many of these traits as failings and wrote them out of his autobiography, My Life and the ICU, in an attempt to portray a ‘worthy story’. Kadalie’s early antagonistic relationship with black respectability had fundamentally shifted by the 1940s, as part of his ‘revival’ as a married, temperate black councillor. Complete with disagreements, divorce, alcoholism, affairs and illegitimate children, this article addresses the awkward place of gender and family in Kadalie’s life, and foregrounds aspects of his biography which My Life and the ICU deliberately circumvents. While his first marriage to Molly Davidson ended following numerous affairs, his second wife Eva Moorhead herself had extra-marital relationships and a son by another man. Put in context, Kadalie’s autobiographical silences point to wider anxieties over gender, Christianity and citizenship in the retrospective narration of masculine leadership in pre-apartheid South Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU)
• biography
• gender
• masculinity
• family
• labour history
• Malawians in South Africa

Acknowledgements

I am incredibly grateful to Rhoda Kadalie, Yvonne Kadalie, Winifred Kadalie, Reuben Kadalie, Leslie Nazombe, Wendy Marion-Moorhead, David Moorhead and Pat Moorhead for sharing family memories with me. Sincere thanks also to Andrew Bank, Tom Cunningham, Ashley Dee, Emma Hunter, Nancy Jacobs, David Johnson, Khwezi Mkhize, Paul Nugent and an anonymous reviewer for looking over early drafts.

Note on Contributor

Henry Dee is a fourth-year history PhD student at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, researching the life and times of Clements Kadalie. He also works with UncoverEd, a collaborative research project looking into the history of students from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas at Edinburgh University between the 1780s and 1980s.

Notes

1 This article forms part of an ESRC funded PhD on ‘The uncrowned king of the black masses: Clements Kadalie and the rise of African labour, 1915–1951’, University of Edinburgh.

2 Malawi National Archives (MNA) 47/LIM/8/15 Overton Institute Scholastic Records June 1901–1927.

3 MNA S2/71/23 Censored correspondence between Clements Muwamba & Clements Kadalie, C Kadalie to EA Muwamba, 29/04/1923.

4 Edinburgh University, Centre for Research Collections (CRC) MS 3086 McAlpine Papers, 19 ‘Among Livingstonians in South Africa and Rhodesia’.

5 Killie Campbell Manuscripts (KCM) AWG Champion Papers 99/6/1, E Roux to N Leys, 16/09/1928.

6 Wits Historical Papers (Wits) Sylvia Neame Papers (SNP), G Findlay to S Neame, 16/08/1969.

7 South African National Archives, Pretoria (SANA) JUS 916 1/18/26 Part 5, Report of ICU meeting on 02/01/1927.

8 Wits Ballinger Papers (WBP) C2.3.7, File 3, WG Ballinger to A Creech Jones, 15/05/1929.

9 ‘Seventh African Labour Conference’, The Workers Herald, 17/05/1927; WBP C2.3.7 (File 3), WG Ballinger to A Creech Jones, 30/01/1929.

10 SANA JUS 916 1/18/26 Part 7, Report of ICU meeting on 17/04/1927.

11 KCM JS Marwick Papers, File 73, The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, KN Xanti to CG Smith, 11/01/1928.

12 SANA JUS 919 1/18/26, Acting Commissioner of Police to Secretary of Justice, 17/01/1928.

13 WBP C2.3.7, File 3, WG Ballinger to A Creech Jones, 30/01/1929; WG Ballinger to A Creech Jones, 15/05/192914; E Lewis to WG Ballinger, 1928.

14 University of Warwick Archives, MSS 292/968/14, WG Ballinger to W Citrine, 08/05/1929.

15 WBP C2.3.7, File 3, B Dulela to C Kadalie, 16/11/1928; WG Ballinger to A Creech Jones, 30/01/1929; Kadalie 1970: 181.

16 UWC, Alexander Kadalie Papers (AKP), Box 58, 1940 Diary, 07/02/1940.

17 WBP C2.3.7, File 3, M Kadalie to M Ballinger; SNP, Sylvia Neame interview with Alexander Kadalie, 09/05/1986.

18 Wits Champion Papers C61, AWG Champion to E Kadalie, 03/12/1951.

19 SANA NTS 7602 20/328 Clements Kadalie, Report of ICU meeting on 27/11/1934.

20 AKP Box 58, 1940 Diary, 07/02/1940.

21 CKP, C Kadalie to A Kadalie, 16/10/1941.

22 Western Cape Archives (WCA) HAEC 1/2/6/1/24 96/1942 Kadalie & Moorehead marriage.

23 CKP, C Kadalie to A Kadalie, 28/06/1943.

24 WBP B2.9.2, C Kadalie, ICU Bulletin, 23/07/1947.

25 CKP, C Kadalie to A Kadalie, 19/06/1945.

26 Ibid.

27 CKP, C Kadalie to A Kadalie, 26/04/1949.

28 ‘Book reveals bias against South Africans’, Pittsburgh Courier, 15/04/1950; ‘Condolences for Mrs Kadalie’, Umteteli, 23/12/1951.

29 CKP, E Kadalie to A Kadalie, 18/05/1953.

30 CKP, E Kadalie to A Kadalie, 25/11/1953.

31 CRC Shepperson Papers (GSP), CLX A 21, G Shepperson to G Padmore, 26/03/1953.

32 GSP, CLX A 21, G Shepperson to G Padmore, 11/09/1953.

33 GSP, CLX A 24, G Shepperson to E Kadalie, 02/11/1959; G Shepperson to V Golancz, 02/11/1959.

34 GSP, CLX A 24, G Shepperson, Report on DD Phiri’s biography, 24/02/1971.

35 Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICS) 67 Roux Papers, E Roux to J van Velsen, 23/08/1962.

36 WBP B2.9.2, E Kadalie, ICU Bulletin, 23/07/1947.