Seretse Khama

Sir Seretse Khama graduated at Fort Hare University College in 1944 with a BA in Law and Administration. Fort Hare students were, at the time, registered as external students of Unisa.

Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana, was the grandson of Kgosi (King) Khama III, who had established a secure semi-independent state across what is now Botswana in the late 19th Century. Khama continued his grandfather’s legacy, leading Botswana, which was then the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, to full independence in 1966 at the helm of the Bechuanaland Democratic Party, which he had founded in 1961. As a student at Fort Hare, he was known for his modesty (noteworthy considering he was to become a king), his prowess on the soccer field, and his skill as a political debater. Khama would later famously declare: “We should write our own history books … a nation without a past is a lost nation, and a people without a past is a people without a soul.”

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