An excellent colour portrait of Steve Biko by the Dispatch cartoonist at the time, Don Kenyon.

"Don Kenyon was arguably the best daily newspaper cartoonist in the country."
- Peter Bruce, former Daily Dispatch reporter and now Publisher of BDFM, publishers of Business Day and the Financial Mail

"LIKE most people of the Transkei, the first English language newspaper I came to read on a regular basis was the Daily Dispatch, the Xhosa one being, of course, Imvo zabaNtsundu.  

My uncle and mentor, under whose wing and direction I grew up till the end of my school days, Nkosi Douglas Dywabasini Prince Ndamase (Zwelinzima!), a traditional leader and politician in the Transkei parliament of the time, was an avid reader of the paper.

I quickly developed a huge appetite for newspapers as they were in abundance. I took to reading them in the veld while herding sheep and cattle, with the result that the cattle often strayed into the mealie-fields, thereby earning me good lashes from local passers-by who witnessed my careless inattention to my given task.

I particularly enjoyed the cartoons which made a mockery of the shenanigans of prominent personalities, especially the politicians of the Transkei and Ciskei homeland governments.

These cartoons were, in the fashion of cartoons of the time, informative, funny, humorous, yet tasteful.

Don Kenyon was a great favourite. They were without the vulgarity, tastelessness, crudity, pornography and insult that have become characteristic of the works of some of present-day cartoonists.

At that time of my awakening to the reality of the world around me, the Daily Dispatch was clearly a progressive paper which, while informing the readers of news of a socio-economic, political nature, made fun, through its cartoonists, of the local and national politicians of the time, thereby raising my political consciousness.

The association of the Black Consciousness Movement leader, Bantu Biko, of Ginsberg, and the then editor of the Dispatch, Donald Woods, contributed a great deal to filling the void that had been created by the banning of the people’s liberation movements, by radicalising the politics of the time especially among high school and University of Fort Hare students.

...The Dispatch’s cartoons remain in good taste even as they poke fun."

- Nkosi Phathekile Holomisa (Ah! Dilizintaba); ANC MP, president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, the Hegebe traditional leader and (occasional) Dispatch columnist.