Sol Plaatje - Legacy

Legacy

In 2000, the South African Post office created a series of stamps about the writers of the Boer War including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Winston Churchill. Plaatje appears on the 1.30 Rand stamp together with Johanna Brandt and the Anglo-Boer War Medal.

The Sol Plaatje Municipality in South Africa's Northern Cape Province is named in his honour. In 1998, with several of his descendants present, an honorary doctorate was posthumously conferred on Plaatje by the University of the North-West.

In Kimberley, the house at 32 Angel Street, where Plaatje spent his last years, was declared a National Monument in 1992 (as was his grave in West End Cemetery, in 1997), when it became the Sol Plaatje Museum and Library, run by the Sol Plaatje Educational Trust, with donor funding.

A statue featuring Plaatje, seated and writing at a desk, was unveiled in Kimberley by South African President Jacob Zuma on 9 January 2010, the 98th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress. By sculptor Johan Moolman, it was erected at the Civic Centre, formerly the Malay Camp, and situated approximately where Plaatje had his printing press in 1910-13.