John Tengo Jabavu (January 11, 1859 – September 10, 1921) was a political activist and the editor of South Africa's first newspaper to be written in Xhosa.
In 1876, Jabavu took over editorship of the Isigidimi samaXhosa ("The Xhosa Messenger"), and by the early 1880s had become an important political force. Jabavu's writings tended to focus on the threat of growing Afrikaner nationalism and his demands for equal rights for South Africa's black population. Tengo Jabavu was also known as a proponent of women's rights as well as public education.
In 1884, Tengo Jabavu founded his own newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu ("Black Opinion"); a year later, he married Elda Sakuba, who would die in 1900, leaving four sons. The eldest of these sons, Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, would become a respected author and activist in his own right; the second eldest, Alexander, succeeded John Tengo Jabavu as editor of Imvo Zabantsundu, following his 1921 death in the home of D.D.T. Jabavu at Fort Hare.