Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Mtimkulu, Donald
Parallel form(s) of name
- M'timkulu, Donald
- Mtimkulu, Don
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
c. 1908-2000
History
Donald Mtimkulu, son of a Methodist priest, in the 1930s became one of the first black South Africans to attend Yale University in the United States, and also studied at the London School of Economics. He served as head of Adams College in present-day KwaZulu-Natal before being appointed professor in the education faculty at Fort Hare in the 1950s, where a number of senior figures in the present-day African National Congress came under his influential tutelage. He went into self-imposed exile in 1959, when Bantu education was extended to universities, warning prophetically before he left that the system was the one aspect of apartheid that would have a more devastating effect on South Africa than any other. He spent several years in Zambia before settling in Ontario, where he taught social development.
His former wife Clytie, a Batswana princess, died in 1987. They had three children: Thoko Mbewu, a social worker in Botswana, and brothers Lizo and Thabiso, both living in the United States.
His former wife Clytie, a Batswana princess, died in 1987. They had three children: Thoko Mbewu, a social worker in Botswana, and brothers Lizo and Thabiso, both living in the United States.