The seminar will be presented by Dr Ndumiso Dladla, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence at UP

Numerous thinkers in the Black Radical Tradition have decried the tendency to overly biographise Black intellectuals, resulting in a phenomenon where the recollection of their lives, scandals, and struggles replaces the careful study of their contributions to the realm of thought. After a discussion about the curious and critical role of biography in the emergence of Black Radical Historiography in post-1994 South Africa, the presentation will forego a biographical account of RM Sobukwe and instead focus on his legal and political thought. I will examine three distinct historical events and the sets of artefacts that arise from them to facilitate my hermeneutic analysis: 1. The founding of the PAC and its distinctive ideological and political characteristics. 2. The so-called Sharpeville Massacre as a praxiological expression of its political thought. 3. The Trial of Sobukwe as an oral treatise on the legal thought and constitutional theory of the PAC. The presentation will conclude with remarks on the value of this heritage for the struggle against neo-colonial constitutionalism today.