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Federation Of South African Women
The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was a political lobby group formed in 1954. At FEDSAW's inaugural conference, a Women's Charter was adopted. Its founding was spear-headed by Lillian Ngoyi. Introduction The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was a multi-racial women's organization and lobby group which organized and protested against the institutional Apartheid Regime that was present throughout South Africa. Whilst South Africa had many forms of societal segregation prior to Apartheid, its institutionalization through governmental policy led its founders to organize against several issues, such as rising costs and the pass law system. As a result, FEDSAW became part of the Congress Alliance, an anti-apartheid coalition led by the African National Congress (ANC). The organization is also most notable for organizing the Women's March 1956, one of the largest protests of the pass laws to take place in the 1950s. FEDSAW is notable because of its achievement i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rachel Simons
Ray Alexander Simons (née Alexandrowich; (31 December 1913 – 12 September 2004) was a South African communist, anti-apartheid activist, campaigner and trade unionist who helped draft the Women's Charter. She moved to Cape Town in 1929 to escape the persecution of Jews and communists. Early life Simons was born in Varklia (Varakļāni), Latvia as Rachel Ester Alexandrowich on 31 December 1913. She was one of six children from Simka Simon and Dobe Alexandrowich. Her father was a teacher of Russian language, German Language and mathematics. He also ran a cheder where the Jewish boys studied talmud and prepared their bar mizvah. She lived in a rich household full of books which exposed her to socialist and communist ideologist. Her father died when she was 12 years old. His best friend, Leib Jaffe, influenced Ray's thinking about socialist ideas and awareness of the vital function of organization to advance worker's right. The death of her father caused Simons to become an athe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coloureds
Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South Africa's Coloured people are regarded as having some of the most diverse genetic background. Because of the vast combination of genetics, different families and individuals within a family may have a variety of different physical features. ''Coloured'' was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid referring to anyone not white or not a member of one the aboriginal groups of Africa on a cultural basis, which effectively largely meant those people of colour not speaking any indigenous languages. In the Western Cape, a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed. In other parts of Southern Africa, people classified as Coloured were usually the descendants of individuals from two distinct ethnicities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fatima Meer
Fatima Meer (12 August 1928 – 12 March 2010) was a South African writer, academic, screenwriter, and prominent anti-apartheid activist. Early life Fatima Meer was born in the Grey Streets of Durban, South Africa, into a middle-class family of nine, where her father Moosa Ismail Meer, a newspaper editor of '' The Indian Views'', instilled in her a consciousness of the racial discrimination that existed in the country. Her mother was Rachel Farrell, the second wife of Moosa Ismail Meer. Her mother was orphaned and of Jewish and Portuguese descent. She converted to Islam and changed her name to Amina. When she was 16 years old in 1944, she helped raise £1 000 for famine relief in Bengal, India. She completed her schooling at the Durban Indian Girls High School. When she was still a student she mobilized students to found the Student Passive Resistance Committee to gather funds for the Indian community's passive resistance campaign from 1946 to 1948. The committee led her to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1956 Treason Trial
The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956. The main trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not guilty. During the trials, Oliver Tambo left the country and was exiled. Whilst in other European and African countries, he started an organisation which helped bring publicity to the African National Congress's cause in South Africa. Some of the defendants were later convicted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964. Chief Luthuli has said of the Treason Trial:The treason trial must occupy a special place in South African history. That grim pre-dawn raid, deliberately calculated to strike terror into hesitant minds and impress upon the entire nation the determination of the governing clique to stifle all opposition, made one hundred and fifty-six of us, belonging to all the races of our land, into a group of accused facing one of the most serious cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Joseph
Helen Beatrice Joseph (''née'' Fennell) (8 April 1905 – 25 December 1992) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Born in Sussex, England, Helen graduated with a degree in English from the University of London in 1927 and then departed for India, where she taught for three years at Mahbubia School for girls in Hyderabad. In about 1930 she left India for England via South Africa. However, she settled in Durban, where she met and married a dentist, Billie Joseph, whom she later divorced. Early life Helen Joseph was born Helen Beatrice May Fennell in 1905 in Easebourne near Midhurst, West Sussex, England, the daughter of a government Customs and Excise officer, Samuel Fennell. Helen Joseph came from a middle-class white family. She grew up in a racially prejudiced household. In 1923 Helen attended the University of London to study English, graduating from King's College London in 1927. After teaching in India for three years, she intended to return home via South Africa. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lilian Ngoyi
Lilian Masediba Matabane Ngoyi, "Mma Ngoyi", (25 September 1911 – 13 March 1980) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress, and helped launch the Federation of South African Women. Prior to becoming a machinist at a textile mill, where she was employed from 1945 to 1956, Ngoyi enrolled to become a nurse. Early life Ngoyi was born in Bloed Street, Pretoria. She was the only daughter of Annie and Isaac Matabane, and a sister to three brothers, Lawrence, George and Percy. Her grandfather, on her mother's side, was Johannes Mphahlele, a member of the royal Mphahlele household, who became a Methodist evangelist, working alongside Samuel Mathabathe. Ngoyi's mother worked as a washerwoman and her father was a mineworker. Ngoyi attended Kilnerton Primary School until Standard Two. In 1928, she moved to Johannesburg to train as a nurse at City Deep Mine Hospital, and completed thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Food And Canning Workers' Union
The Food and Canning Workers' Union (FCWU) was a trade union representing food processing workers in South Africa. Its members were mainly based in the Western and Eastern Cape. It was affiliate with the African Food and Canning Workers' Union (AFCWU). Background The union was established in 1941 by Rachel Simons. It was a founder member of the South African Congress of Trade Unions and spread through the fruit canning industry of the Boland, Western Cape and up the west coast among fishing communities. Many of the members were women. It was open to all races when it formed though the majority of its members were coloured with a minor black membership. It was registered under the ''Industrial Conciliation Act'', which banned black people who carried passes, something black females did not need at that time of its formation. By 1945, the union was being harassed by the Department of Labour, raiding it constantly to force it to remove its black members. It would result in the format ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Indian Congress
The South African Indian Congress (SAIC) was an organisation founded in 1921 in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), South Africa. The congress is famous for its strong participation by Mahatma Gandhi and other prominent South African Indian figures during the time. Umar Hajee Ahmed Jhaveri was elected the first president of the South African Indian Congress. The SAIC was a member of the Congress Alliance. See also * Natal Indian Congress The Natal Indian Congress (NIC) was an organisation that aimed to fight discrimination against Indians in South Africa. The Natal Indian Congress was proposed by Mahatma Gandhi on 22 May 1894. established on 22 August 1894. Gandhi was the H ... References ANC Description of the South African Indian Congress Anti-Apartheid organisations Defunct civic and political organisations in South Africa Organizations established in 1924 1924 establishments in South Africa Indian diaspora in South Africa {{SouthAfrica-party-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federation Of South African Women Poster Of Members
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body. Alternatively, a federation is a form of government in which sovereign power is formally divided between a central authority and a number of constituent regions so that each region retains some degree of control over its internal affairs. It is often argued that federal states where the central government has overriding powers are not truly federal states. For example, such overriding powers may include: the constitutional authority to suspend a constituent state's government by i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilda Bernstein
Hilda Bernstein (15 May 1915 – 8 September 2006) was a British-born author, artist, and an activist against apartheid and for women's rights. She was born Hilda Schwarz in London, England, and emigrated to South Africa at the age of 18 years, becoming active in politics. She married fellow activist Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein in March 1941, and together they played prominent roles in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. After her husband was tried and acquitted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964, government harassment forced them to flee to Botswana, an ordeal described in her 1967 book '' The World that was Ours'', which was republished by Persephone Books in 2004. They lived in Britain for some years where she further established herself internationally as a speaker, writer, and artist. She returned with her husband to South Africa in 1994 for the South African election in which fellow activist Nelson Mandela was elected President. She died at the age of 91 in Cape Town, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharpeville Massacre Graves, Phelindaba Cemetery, Sharpeville, Vereeniging, South Africa
Sharpeville (also spelled Sharpville) is a township situated between two large industrial cities, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging, in southern Gauteng, South Africa. Sharpeville is one of the oldest of six townships in the Vaal Triangle. It was named after John Lillie Sharpe who came to South Africa from Glasgow, Scotland, as secretary of Stewarts & Lloyds. Sharpe was elected to the Vereeniging City Council in 1932 and held the position of mayor from 1934 to 1937. The main reason for the establishment of Sharpeville was the relocation of people from "Top Location" to an area away from Vereeniging because it was felt black people were too close to Vereeniging for comfort. Because the project was intended only to relocate residents of "Top Location", and not to house additional people, it did not alleviate the housing shortage. What was planned as a five-year resettlement project beginning in 1935, in fact, took 20 years. In 1941, 16,000 people lived in "Top Location". The building o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharpeville Massacre
The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng). After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd: some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police and that the mood had turned "ugly". The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled. The massacre was photographed by photographer Ian Berry, who initially thought the police were firing blanks. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
