Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu was born in King Williams Town, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and was educated at Morija Institution, a mission centre in Basutoland (present-day Lesotho).

Before returning home in 1915, D. D. T. Jabavu visited the United States on a tour of Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute and other black centres of learning.

In addition, he established the South African Native Farmers' Association to encourage the development of better farming standards, stressing the value of manual labour.

However, in 1948, the year that Jabavu retired from public life, he was a signatory to a joint ANC-AAC "Call for Unity", which attempted to reconcile their differences.

He also wrote articles and books on the African struggle, including The Black Problem (1920), The Segregation Fallacy and Other Papers (1928), The Life of John Tengo Jabavu, editor of Imvo Zabantsundu (1922) and IziDungulwana (1958).