Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (9 October 1876 – 19 June 1932) was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator and writer.

[4] His grandfather's name was Selogilwe Mogodi (1836-1881) but his employer, the Boer farmer Groenewald, nicknamed him Plaatje ('Picture') in 1856 and the family started using this as a surname.

When he outpaced fellow learners he was given additional private tuition by Mrs. Westphal, who also taught him to play the piano and violin and gave him singing lessons.

[4] He subsequently passed the clerical examination (the highest in the colony) with higher marks than any other candidate in Dutch and typing (reported by Neil Parsons in his foreword to Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion).

[5] At that time, the Cape Colony had qualified franchise for all men 21 or over, the qualification being that they be able to read and write English or Dutch and earn over 50 pounds a year.

[4] Shortly thereafter, he became a court interpreter for the British colonial authorities in Mafeking when the settlement was under siege and kept a diary of his experiences which were published posthumously.

[6] As a member of an SANNC deputation, he traveled to England to protest against the Natives Land Act, 1913, and later to Canada and the United States where he met Marcus Garvey and W. E. B.

One was the cinema and theatrical impresario George Lattimore who in 1923 was promoting with Pathé, Cradle of the World, the "most marvellous and thrilling travel film ever screened".

[12] Importantly, according to the SOAS University of London, this short-lived acting reflects a period of Plaatje's life where he was "desperately in need of money".

Plaatje, descended from the BaRong people of the Tswana-speaking nation; but was born and raised in a Lutheran Mission within the Orange Free State.

[23] Secondly, Georgiana Solomon and Jane Cobden, interceded on Plaatje's behalf within the So-called Aborigines' Protection Society, to try and win him an audience, which triggered their expulsion.

"Much of what he strove for came to nought," writes his biographer Brian Willan; "his political career was gradually forgotten, his manuscripts were lost or destroyed, his published books largely unread.