‘A Sign Prophetic’: Cities, AmaRespectables and the Royal Visit of 1947

This chapter explores the late flowering of ‘black loyalism’ amongst African urban elites, professionals, educators, and working people during the Royal Visit of 1947, tracing the tour through the region’s cities, towns, and mission schools. In stark contrast to dominant images of urban insurgence and grassroots radicalism that had swept through the African townships of the major cities, the chapter explores the variety and vitality of loyalist discourses and the hold that monarchy and empire still exerted on the African urban political imagination. It shows how they continued to provide points of political and moral reference. The chapter explores the passionate, if ephemeral expressions of monarchical faith, conveyed in song, poetry, choirs, naming practices, spontaneous gestures, and the sheer exuberance and size of city crowds. It highlights the multiple meanings read into the King’s presence; wild hopes derived from a sovereign who seemed to transcend the colour bar and whose presence was thus a portent of the end of segregation. The impassioned debates that took place in Indian political circles over participation in the Royal Visit were replicated amongst African politicians and urban leaders and in the press, and are explored in this chapter, as are the complex reasons for widespread and jubilant participation in the segregated and much criticised events organised for Africans. Indeed, the focus of popular anger was the ‘inferior’ character of African celebrations, the miserly amount of time devoted to urban African communities in the tour itineraries, and the refusal to allow African National Congress leaders to meet with the King. Just as the call on Indian communities to boycott the ceremonies failed, Africans turned up in their thousands to pay their respects to their sovereign, including the most prominent and ANC notables, like Drs James Moroka, Modiri Molema, A.B. Xuma and Chief Albert Luthuli.