A prominent African moderate for many years, he was born in the Cape in 1899 and worked at various times as clerk, trader, and journalist. He was a founder of the South African Congress of Advisory Boards and served as its president over a very long period, starting in the 1920s. As a protégé of Sol Plaatje, he started his career as a reporter for the East London Daily Dispatch and was also editor of Umlindi we Nyanga, a Xhosa monthly. He was an elected member of the Natives' Representative Council (NRC) from its inception in 1937 until it dissolved in 1951, and was a strong proponent of enhancing the Council's powers to deal with substantive policy matters.

He was a participant in the Joint Council movement and the South African Institute of Race Relations and was an official of the Cape Native Voters' Convention and the All African Convention in the 1930s. Godlo worked closely with A. B. Xuma as a member of the African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee in the 1940s and shared Xuma's views on the need for government to recognize the permanence of urban African communities.

In 1943 he participated in the formulation of Africans' Claims , but he later opposed the militancy of the Youth League and dropped out of active Congress politics. He died in 1972.

References

• Gerhart G.M and Karis T. (ed)(1977)
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