Did you know South Africa celebrates women’s day twice a year?
The reason behind this is just as iconic as the women credited with making it happen.
On August 9th 1956, 20,000 South African women gathered at Union buildings in Pretoria,
the seat of the apartheid government, to protest passes for black women.
Passes were a form of discriminatory internal passports used to separate black
South Africans and limit their movements. To get as many women as possible to attend,
the protest was held on a Thursday, the official day black women who worked as
domestic workers were allowed a day off. The women’s decision to walk in groups of
twos and threes was a protest in itself, as the government had banned mass congregating.
Once at union buildings, four women, presented a petition signed by 14,000 women calling for
the abolition of passes. These women are now honored as the leaders of the Women’s March.
At the helm of the protest was Lilian Ngoyi also known as the Mother of black resistance.
Born in 1911, Ngoyi, a seam stress, was a woman of firsts.
She was the first woman elected to the national executive committee of
the African National Congress (ANC), and President of its women’s league.
She also helped launch and lead the Federation of South African Women.
Ngoyi travelled widely to marshal international support against apartheid, once even attempting
to travel as a stowaway, under a white name. For her fight for democracy, Ngoyi was arrested
multiple times, and banned from meeting more than one person at a time including family.
While she remained true to her convictions she died before seeing a democratic South Africa.
Convicted against the unjust segregation rules in apartheid South Africa,
Rahima Moosa and her twin sister Fatima joined politics as teenagers.
To trick police officers, they often switched identities to evade harassment.
Rahima joined the ANC after her party, the Transvaal Indian
Congress and the ANC signed a pact. In spite of being heavily pregnant
with her daughter, she joined other women in solidarity at Union buildings.
She was later listed by the regime meaning she was under constant police surveillance,
harassment and movement restricted. Born in England and moving to South
Africa from India in 1931, Helen Joseph unnerved white apartheid supporters.
She helped form the Federation of South African Women.
She worked tirelessly to reunite families separated during apartheid and was considered
an honorary mother to many activists’ children For being outspoken, Helen was arrested,
banned from speaking against the government, and surviving several murder attempts including a bomb
strapped to her gate and gunshots to her bedroom. As the only surviving member of the women’s march,
Sophia Williams De Bruyn was only 18 and the youngest leader of the march.
As a teenager, she dropped out of school when she was nominated to represent workers grievances
in a textile factory she worked in during the school holidays.
She later helped start the South African Congress of Trade Unions,
became organizer in the Colored People’s party and narrowly missed being arrested for treason.
Sophia became a member of South Africa’s Commission of Gender Equality, deputy speaker
for Gauteng province parliament, and a member of national parliament in the free South Africa.
To date, she remains a human rights and equality champion
The women leaders each represented the different races of women in South Africa-
White, black, Indian and mixed race, who believed in the freedom struggle.
However, many more women are also acknowledged for working behind the scenes.
As the protest continued the women sang in defiance,
‘You strike a woman you strike a rock, you die’.
In 1995, to commemorate the courage and leadership of women in the freedom struggle,
South Africa declared August 9th, Women’s day and has celebrated it ever since.
The women’s march has gone down in history as one of South Africa’s defining moments
that cemented the role, power, strength and dignity of women in leadership and governance.