Women’s March on Pretoria, 1956

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we are going to talk about a protest that took place in nineteen fifty six in Pretoria, South Africa. This was a protest against pass laws that were part of South africa system of apartheid, and specifically the requirement that women carry passes. So this protest was simultaneously part of the anti apartheid movement in South Africa and also the movement for women's rights. It's been quite a while since we've talked about apartheid on the show, so we're going to start with some of that context. And to be clear, this involves centuries of South African history, so it is not going to be a comprehensive look at all of this. Uh. It is an overview that's meant to give folks who aren't familiar a sense of how the system of apartheid evolved, especially as it related to these past laws. Also, for a lot of the time that we're talking about, laws in South Africa separated its population into four groups. There was European or white black, which at various points was described using terms like native and Bantu, colored or a multi racial and Indian, and Indian was a catch all term describing basically anyone from Southeast Asia unless we are using the proper names of things like organizations or laws or quoted material. Just for the psych of simplicity, we're gonna stick with the terms white black, multi racial, and Asian rather than drawing from this more dated terminology. The British and the Dutch each started trying to establish settlements and garrisons in Southern Africa in the seventeenth century. European control of the area passed back and forth between Britain and the Dutch East India Company until the early nineteenth century at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain reannexed South Africa to keep it from falling into the hands of the French. British efforts at colonization expanded really rapidly from there, and this led to intense conflict between Britain and the region's many African nations and people's The British really envisioned the society they were establishing in Southern Africa as one that was for Europeans only, so the British army forced the area's African nations and people's off of their lands in a series of attacks and wars. There was also conflict between British colonists and the Boers, or people with Dutch, German and Huguenot ancestry. As Britain established a larger and larger presence in South Africa, English replaced Dutch as the dominant European language. British currency also replaced Dutch currency, and of course, many Boers found the shift away from their predominantly Dutch origins threatening. Britain also outlawed slavery in eighteen thirty four, which prompted many Boers to try to move to areas outside of British control so they could retain their enslaved labor. Eventually, the Boers established the Orange Free State and the South African Republic also known as Transvaal, leaving Britain in control of the Cape of Good Hope Colony and the Colony of Natal and each of these colonies, white governments took steps to try to control and restrict the movements of the local black population, including through systems of discrimination and segregation. Starting in eighteen fifty six, each of the four colonies passed laws that were known as the Masters and Servants Acts. These laws criminalized things like going on strike and breaking employment contracts, and while they theoretically applied to anyone who was employed, in practice they were mostly enforced only for black people. Diamonds were discovered in Kimberly and eighteen sixty seven, leading to a huge rush to the area and to dow beers claiming a monopoly on the South African diamond trade. As part of this, the colonies tried to annex even more land and to consolidate neighboring states, further reducing the amount of land the black population of South Africa was allowed to access and to live on. The discovery of diamonds also led to a huge disruption among many African communities, as there was a demand for men to work in the mines, leaving women to continue caring for their families while also picking up the agricultural work that was necessary to sustain them. In eighteen ninety three, the Orange Free State instituted a pass system. Passes were essentially internal passports that were necessary to move around within the state, but they were required only for the state's black population, and protests against these passes started as soon as they were introduced. Requiring only black people to carry identification documents was discriminatory and insulting, and because the passes were legally mandated, they also provided an easy excuse for white authorities to hassle people of color. Another law passed in the Orange Free State in nineteen o seven established a requirement that black domestic workers carry a service book, which detailed exactly where they worked, and it had to be carried at all times. If a person was caught without their service book three times, they could be ejected from the town where they lived. The South African War, also called the Second Boer War, had taken place roughly alongside all of this, starting in eighteen nine and ending in nineteen o two. This war was between Britain and the Borer colonies of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. The British had promoted the idea of equal laws and equal liberty, so many black South Africans sided with Britain in this conflict, hoping to have a more just and equitable existence once the war was over. Instead, an all white delegation held a series of meetings in nineteen o eight and nineteen o nine, which led to the South Africa Act. This was an act that united the four colonies under an all white government, with the exception of black and multi racial people who met specific wealth requirements. Only white people had the right to vote, and the few members of parliament who were supposed to represent the interests of South Africa's black population were appointed, not elected. Only about a fifth of the population of South Africa was white, so this left the vast majority of people living in South Africa with no representation in the government, then no direct involvement in the political process. Black South Africans held a convention as these constitutional meetings were being held, but it wasn't officially recognized and it had no formal polityical power. At the same time, after the Union of South Africa went into effect in nineteen ten, it did seem like some progress toward equality might be more possible than it was before, particularly in terms of the Orange Free States pass laws. People had already been protesting and circulating petitions to try to have the pass laws overturned, but now the petitions could be delivered to Prime Minister Louis Botha, rather than the government of the Orange Free State. In March of nineteen twelve, a group of black and multiracial women from Orange Free State took a petition containing at least five thousand signatures to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister didn't respond to this petition, so a group of women instead appealed to Henry Burton, Minister of Native Affairs. Burton had a reputation for trying to protect people of color in South Africa, but he seems to have been reluctant to weigh in on this. The so called native question had been threaded through the efforts to establish a minority white government in a region where white people were a tiny percentage of the population, and the government taking action on the Orange Free States pass laws had the potential to just turn one province's laws into a much more national issue. So he argued that the pass books were a local issue that needed to be handled within the province, not something to be handled by the South African government. If Burton was hoping to avoid the development of a national movement against discrimination in South Africa, that did not work. The South African National Native Congress was formed in nineteen twelve, and it became the African National Congress or a n C in ninety three. We'll get some more about how this developed after a sponsor break. We are focused mainly on path Us laws in today's episode, but they were of course, by far not the only laws that contributed to the apartheid system that developed in South Africa. As European colonies grew and expanded their influence, the non white population of South Africa was increasingly forced into smaller and smaller areas of land. Eventually, this evolved into the formal establishment of segregated communities, which were the only places that people of color were allowed to live. For example, in the nineteen teens, people who tried to move out of rural areas and the Orange Free State mostly wound up in vay Hook, location outside of the Free State capital of Bloemfontein. White authorities tried to implement a past system to control people's movements into and out of vay Hook. They also targeted black women, specifically claiming that black women were engaging in sex work. Some black women had also started supporting themselves by brewing and selling beer, which white authorities claimed was damaging society. In May of nineteen thirteen, a civil disobedience campaign started in the Orange Free State. People started refusing to carry passes and just saying they were prepared to be arrested. Women gathered and tore up or burned their passes outside of government buildings. A cycle of demonstrations and arrests went on all through nineteen thirteen. In nineteen fourteen, the Prime Minister finally agreed to review Orange Free States pass laws, but they remained on the books until nineteen eighteen, with protests and demonstrations against them going on at various points throughout those years. Although the idea of mandatory passes faded from the forefront, other discriminatory laws were passed over the following years. The Natives Urban Areas Act of nineteen twenty three gave local authorities the right to establish segregated areas on the outskirts of cities and industrial areas and to force black people to move into those areas. Cities or employers were expected to provide housing in these areas, but money to maintain that housing also came from things like fines and rent that were charged to the people who were forced to live there. In nineteen twenty seven, the law in South Africa effectively treated black women as miners rather than as full adults with any sort of legal authority. By nineteen thirty, only thirteen percent of the land area in South Africa was open for black people to live on. For context, by that point, South Africa had a black population of about twenty million people and a white population of about four million people, so those roughly one fifth of the population had control of eighty seven percent of the land. The quality of the land was part of it too. The reserves that were designated for black people were generally the poorest land with access to the fewest sources. Prior to the nineteen thirties, most domestic workers in South Africa had been men, but by the mid thirties that started to shift. More women started traveling or moving to cities, some just looking for work, others trying to reunite with husbands or other family members who had done the same. Cities and provincial government started passing more restrictive laws to try to allow black people to enter cities only to work and not to live. Because people tried to find some way to live closer to the places they worked, squatter camps were established around the perimeters of cities, and of course those camps were then targeted by white communities who did not want them to be there. The all white National Party came to power in South Africa after the nineteen forty eight election, and while segregation and other forms of discrimination had existed in South Africa since the start of colonization, it was this party that implemented the set of laws that came to be known as apartheid. These built on existing laws and systems of discrimination, including ones that we have not discussed in this episode because there were so many we would just read a list if we tried to get into them. All. Yeah, some of the biggest laws that were passed after the National Party came to power. This is an overview. There was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act that was passed in nineteen forty nine. It prohibited marriages between white people and people of any other racial group. The Population Registration Act of nineteen fifty legally classified anyone in South Africa as black, white, or colored. Initially, Asians were included in the colored group, but they were separated out into their own category of Indian later on. The group areas Act of nineteen fifty outlined where people of different races could live, with people who were in the wrong places forced to move. And again, with more than eighty percent of South Africa designated for whites only, the Bands Who Authorities Act of nineteen fifty one established so called home lands for black South Africans, with those whole lands given a purportedly independent status, but anybody who moved into one of those homelands lost their South African citizenship and any rights and privileges that went along with it. The African National Congress and the South African Indian Congress started a campaign of coordinated civil disobedience in response to these and other laws, known as the Defiance Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, that was launched on June nineteen fifty two, with volunteers doing things like intentionally using whites only facilities and being arrested and jailed as a result. Women were part of the Defiance campaign. The a n C had started to allow women as members in nineteen forty three and the a n C Women's League had been established in nine Then, in addition to the laws we just mentioned and others, there was the Natives Abolition of Passes in Coordination of Documents Act of nineteen fifty two. This repealed earlier pass laws that were still on the books, and it introduced a new standardized passbook that all black men would be required to carry. Requiring only black men to carry papers would have been discriminatory on its own, but this passbook also went way beyond something like a passport or a basic I D. It contained the person's photograph and information about where they were from, but it also included unemployment record, tax records, fingerprints, and police records. In addition to these requirements, this law also required black people to get a permit if they wanted to move, and anybody arriving in a city to try to find work had to have a permit within seventy two hours of getting there. Initially, this act applied only to black men, but a lot of black women also lived and worked in cities or otherwise needed to move around South Africa for their lives and their work. The Native Laws Amendment Act, which was also passed in nineteen fifty two, had further tightened requirements on where non white people were allowed to live in work, and its terms exempted women who met specific criteria from needing to carry passes, but in many cities and towns, local authorities started requiring them anyway. This started mainly in the Western Cape, where the government had established a restrictive quote colored preference area with strict controls on who could enter and who could live there. So, in addition to the other work they were doing with the Defiance campaign, women in South Africa were pushing back on the requirements for women to carry passes. On January fourth, ninety three, hundreds of people protested in Cape Town. Dora Tamana of the a See Women's League gave a speech that set in part quote, we women will never carry these passes. This is something that touches my heart. I appeal to you young Africans to come forward and fight. These passes make the road even narrower for us. We have seen unemployment, lack of accommodation and families broken because of passes. We have seen it with our men, who will look after our children when we go to jail for a small technical offense not having a pass. Tomato was also part of the Federation of South African Women when it was established in nineteen fifty four. Other founders included Amina Cachalia, Lillian Goy, Ray Simons and Helen Joseph. The leaders of the Federation of South African Women came from all of South Africa's racial groups, and it was meant to be an organization for all women of all races, with goals related to equality regardless of sex and equality regardless of race. The Federation of South African Women held its first conference in Johannesburg on April seventeenth, nineteen fifty four. A women's charter that was drafted at the conference began with this preamble quote, We the women of South Africa, wives and mothers, working women in housewives, African, Indians, European and Colored hereby declare our aim of striving for the removal of all laws, regulations, conventions and customs that discriminate against us as women, and that deprive us in any way of our inherent right to the advantages, responsibilities, and opportunities that society offers to any one section of the population. The charter then walks through an overview of the state of affairs in South Africa, including its systems of discrimination and poverty, and the loss of social structures in African and Asian communities which had been dismantled through colonization. It also noted that the women of South Africa were legally treated as miners with little access to education or support. This charter also outlined a set of aims. They were quote the right to vote and to be elected to all state bodies without restriction or discrimination. The rights of full opportunities for employment with equal pay and possibilities of promotion and all spheres of work. Equal rights with men in relation to property, marriage, and children. And for the removal of all laws and customs that deny women such equal rights. For the development of every child through free compulsory education for all. For the protection of mother and child through maternity homes, welfare clinics, crushes and nursery schools in countryside and towns, through proper homes for all, and through the provision of water, light, transport, sanitation, and other amenities of modern civilization. For the removal of all laws that restrict free movement, that prevent or hinder the right of free association and activity in democratic organizations, and the right to participate in the work of these organizations. To build and strengthen women's sections in the national liberatory movements, the organization of women in trade unions and through the People's Varied Organization to cooperate with all other organizations that have similar aims in South Africa as well as throughout the world to strive for permanent peace throughout the world. In nineteen fifty five, a multi racial group of people and organizations meant in Cliptown at the Congress of the People. The Freedom Charter that was drafted at this congress incorporated the aims from the Women's Charter. But we will talk about how the nineteen fifty six protest that was coordinated by a lot of these same women evolved after a sponsor break. As soon as national, provincial, and local governments in South Africa started requiring that women carry passes, women started refusing to do it, including refusing to even have a pass issued to them, and Winburg, Orange Free State employers personally escorted black employees to the pass office, telling them that they were just being issued papers that would allow them to travel freely. Once people realized what was really going on, women in Winburg organized a march to the magistrate's court and burned their passes publicly. On March ninety five, about two thousand women of all races marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, which are the seat of the South African government, to protest the pass laws. After this, the Federation of South African Women started planning a larger protest march, one that would again involve women of all races. This was the march that took place on August nine, nineteen fifty six x. This was a Thursday, chosen because black domestic workers had Thursdays off and organizers wanted as many women as possible to be able to attend. Women who didn't live in Pretoria arrived in the area the night before, and on the ninth they walked to the Union Buildings and groups of two and three because non white people were not permitted to gather in large groups. Somewhere between ten thousand and twenty thousand women ultimately arrived at the Union Buildings and it took two and a half hours to get everyone inside the area where the protests was taking place. Many women had their children with them or the children that they were paid to care for. Some were dressed in their domestic uniforms, some in traditional clothing. There was a really broad spectrum of ethnicity, race, and class represented. Leaders of the march included Raheema Musa, Lillian Goy, Helen Joseph, and Sophia Williams. At the age of eighteen. Williams was the youngest of the march leaders, and she later married and became Sophia Williams Dubrain. The leaders of the march had a petition with about fourteen thousand signatures which they were going to present to Prime Minister J. G. Straight Um. This petition read quote, we the women of South Africa have come here today. We African women know too well the effect of this law upon our homes, our children. We who are not African women, know how our sisters suffer. For to us, an insult to African women is an insult to all women. That homes will be broken up when women are arrested under past laws. That women and young girls will be exposed to humiliation and degradation at the hands of past searching policemen. That women will lose their right to move freely from one place to another. We voters and vote lists, call upon your government not to issue passes to African women. We shall resist until we have one for our children. Their fundamental rights of freedom, just and security. A group of representatives who tried to enter the Union buildings were also turned away because they were integrated. March leader Lillian Goi was quoted as saying, quote, the women of Africa are outside. They built this place and their husbands died for this. Although the plan had been to present this petition to the Prime Minister, he and his staff had left the building, so once some of the women were finally allowed inside, they left piles of signed petitions outside his office. In the end, the assembled women stood outside the Union buildings in silence for half an hour before leaving. They also sang a freedom song. Part of it translates to when you strike a woman, you strike a rock. This became a slogan for women's liberation in South Africa, sometimes followed by subsequent lines that are translated as you have dislodged a boulder, you will be crushed, well choked up. Those are great. It's a slogan that's still shows up on on posters and at protests and things, both in South Africa and elsewhere. So this march did not lead to an end to pass requirements for women, but women's activism did influence when and how those laws were enforced. For the most part, enforcement started in more rural areas where fewer of the women were organized and there wasn't as much of a social support network for resisting the laws. From their enforcement rolled out to bigger towns and cities, with enforcement starting in Johannesburg in nineteen fifty eight. However, this march was a turning point in the movement for women's liberation in South Africa and for women's involvement in the fight against apartheid. As we mentioned earlier, women had been part of this from the beginning, but the African National Congress had only started allowing women as full members in nineteen forty three. This nineteen fifty six march was the largest demonstration that the Federation of South African Women had coordinated up to that point, so this made women's ongoing political involvement just that much more visible, and that involvement was carried on through a campaign of civil disobedience, with women refusing to carry passes and facing arrest as a result. So many women did this in Johannesburg that the jail became seriously overcrowded, but this also led to concerns within the A and C about how to pay for the legal fees of the arrested women. Ultimately, the A and C ended the formal anti past disobedience campaign for this reason. The leaders of the march also faced consequences. I mean, everybody who was doing this work was doing so at risk to their life and the lives of their families. In nineteen fifty six, a hundred and fifty six people in South Africa were tried for treason. This included marchers and organizers Helen Joseph, Lillian Nigoy, Bertha Mashaba, and Francis Bard, among others. Although all the defendants in that trial were found not guilty, it lasted until nineteen sixty one and it was an intentionally traumatizing experience for the people facing trial. Some of the defendants, including Nelson Mandela, were tried for treason a second time in nineteen sixty three and sixty four, and that time convicted. Although the women's march to Pretoria was peaceful, later demonstrations against apartheid became violent. In nineteen fifty nine, authorities in Durban started trying to enforce pass laws and to stop women from brewing and selling beer. This led to a series of riots in nineteen sixty in which nine police officers were killed. Then, on March twenty first, nineteen sixty, police opened fire during a demonstration against pass laws and Sharpville, killing at least sixty nine people and wounding almost two hundred more. This became known as the Sharpville massacre, and it's simultaneously raised international awareness and criticism of apartheid condition in South Africa, and it also led the government to crack down further on the anti apartheid movement. Afterward, the government banned both the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress and imprisoned many of their leaders or forced them into exile. Resistance to apartheid and violent response to that resistance continued for years. In nineteen seventy six, the government made the study of Afrikaans mandatory in schools, and in response, the South African Students Movement began coordinating protests among children. On June sixteenth, nineteen seventy six, thousands of children took part in a protest march that was met by police who fired live ammunition and tear gas at them. This led to an uprising in which hundreds of people were killed. The international community responded with increasing restrictions and sanctions against South Africa. Apartheid laws in South Africa finally began to be dismantled in the nineteen eighties. The Natives Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act of nineteen fifty two was repealed. In nineteen eighty six, South African President FW de Clerk called for a total end to apartheid. After being elected in nineteen eighty nine. He repealed the bands on anti apartheid organizations and allowed exiled political leaders to return to South Africa. An interim constitution was drawn up in nineteen ninety three, and in nineteen ninety four, South Africa held its first non racial democratic election. On August nine, the Women's Day holiday was observed in South Africa for the first time, and all of August is observed as Women's Month. A re enactment of the march was held for its fiftieth anniversary in two thousand and six, with many of the original marchers participating. Today, annual Women's Day observances in South Africa often include reflections on how far things have come and how far they still have to go. For example, I watched recordings of a lot of Women's Day speeches from one and they included things like an ongoing epidemic of gender based violence in South Africa and how the COVID nineteen pandemic has affected women. Do you have a little listener mail? I do I have listener mail. It's about another serious episode of the show. But uh not an email that I would call up setting it anyway. Uh. This is from Robin. Robin wrote, Holly and Tracy, I just listened to your episode about the Holadamoor. It meant a lot to me. I live in Alberta, which, as you noted, has a huge Ukrainian population. I had not known that or much Ukrainian history when I moved here, so it's been a fun learning curve from me. I grew up in the States and have been listening to YouTube since shortly before I moved. I really love how Alberta continues to honor. Honor is spelled with a you and so then Robin has a brother Seas. Since moving here, I've adopted most Canadian spell things. I even say z not z these days. Uh. So, to return to how Alberta has has honored Ukraine, UM, I thought I would share a couple of the cool things in my area that mark this historic connection. City Hall in Edmonton has the first public monument in Canada remembering the holadam or I don't think the picture doesn't justice. I still remember being struck by it the first time I saw it. A town in eastern Alberta has a giant pissnka that is a Ukrainian Easter egg. Um. And there's an article that Robin included that says, uh, this assumes that you know that the yellow head is part of the Cross Canada Highway. And so the link is to an article at Wikipedia. Uh, that's about this gigantic structure of one of these eggs, and it really is very beautiful and striking. The thing that the invasion brought to light was the historic connections between Ukrainian immigrants and First Nations people. Here's an article about that from a p t in an indigenous news source. Uh. And the article that is linked is about Ukrainian and First Nations women coming together through scarves that are related to each of these two different groups. So um, all of that is so interesting. And then Robin says, I'm including a picture of our new puppy because everyone deserves cute puppy pictures. He is the goodest boy. This is a very fluffy chocolate brown dog with little chocolate brown nose and chocolate brown eyes. And I want to put pets is very fluffy fur uh. So thank you Robin for this email and these links. I had never seen any of these things before. I had seen those Easter eggs, but I didn't notice that I didn't know the name of them, so that was all very cool. So um, if anyone else would like to send us an email or at history podcast at iHeart radio dot com. We're all over social media at missed in History, so you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, pintereston Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on I heart radio app or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.