Sol Plaatje was one of the most remarkable South Africans of the early twentieth century: journalist, novelist, linguist, political activist, and first Secretary-General of what became the ANC. The museum occupies the house in the Malay Camp neighbourhood where he lived during his final years, and it tells a story that gets little space in the more prominent Kimberley heritage sites.
Plaatje documented the Siege of Kimberley in a diary that is one of the great first-hand accounts of the Anglo-Boer War, written from the perspective of Black Kimberley residents who were caught in the siege while remaining largely invisible to official histories. His novel Mhudi, published in 1930, was the first novel written in English by a Black South African author. The museum presents his life and work with intelligence and care, and his story provides a necessary counterpoint to the Cecil Rhodes and De Beers narratives that dominate most of Kimberley's heritage trail.