Restarting the Games: The African People’s Organisation’s contribution to South African Sports in 1919 (Part III).

Abstract

A descriptive sport-historical enquiry, for the year 1919, into the publication of the official mouthpiece of the African People‘s Organisation (APO) was undertaken. The APO official mouthpiece or newspaper was called the A.P.O.Official organ of the African People‟s Organisation. .Research in this area was previously conducted for the period 1909 – 1913 and 1914 – 1915 (Cleophas & Van der Merwe, 2010a &b).It is imperative that the three articles be read together, in order to get a clear understanding of the connection between the APO and sport development. The APO first appeared on 24 May 1909 and was published fortnightly on alternate Saturdays, thus becoming one of the early newspapers to be directed at a South African Coloured readership (Adhikari, 1996:1). No copies appeared between December 1915 and July 1919. The APO provides sport historians with a panoramic view of participation practices of historically marginalized communities in urban centres, as well as in obscure rural villages. The newspaper also provides a comprehensive overview of sport participation levels during the early years of the 20th century.

Keywords: African People‘s Organisation (APO), sport, South Africa.