The Black Sash is a South African human rights organisation. It was founded in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

in 1955 as a

non-violent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

resistance organisation for liberal white women.

Origins

The Black Sash was founded on 19 May 1955 by six middle-class white women, Jean Sinclair, Ruth Foley, Elizabeth McLaren, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza and Helen Newton-Thompson. The organisation was founded as the ''Women’s Defence of the Constitution League'' but was eventually shortened by the press as the Black Sash due to the women's habit of wearing black sashes at their protest meetings. These black sashes symbolised the mourning for the South Africa Constitution. The founding members gathered for tea in Johannesburg before they decided to organise a movement against the Senate Act. They succeeded in holding a vigil of 2 000 women who marched from Joubert Park to the Johannesburg City Hall.

Anti-apartheid activity

The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

by the National Party government. As the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

system began to reach into every aspect of South African life, Black Sash members demonstrated against the

Pass Laws In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, manage urbanization and allocate migrant labor. Also known as the natives' law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only black ...

and the introduction of other apartheid legislation. It would later open advice offices to provide information concerning their legal rights to non-white South Africans affected by that legislation. These advice offices were a critical role of the organisation's brave and principled role as a vital component of civil society. Between 1955 and 1994, the Black Sash provided widespread and visible proof of white resistance towards the apartheid system. In fact, during the 1960s and most of the 1970s the Black Sash and

National Union of South African Students The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was an important force for liberalism and later radicalism in South African student anti-apartheid politics. Its mottos included non-racialism and non-sexism. Early history NUSAS was found ...

represented the only consistent white opposition to the government outside Parliament. Its members worked as volunteer advocates to families affected by apartheid laws; held regular street demonstrations; spoke at political meetings; brought cases of injustice to the attention of their Members of Parliament, and kept vigils outside Parliament and government offices. Many members were vilified within their local white communities, and it was not unusual for women wearing the black sash to be physically attacked by supporters of apartheid.

Sheena Duncan Sheena Duncan (7 December 1932 – 4 May 2010) was a South African anti-Apartheid activist and counselor. Duncan was the daughter of Jean Sinclair, one of the co-founders of the Black Sash, a group of white, middle-class South African women wh ...

joined the Black Sash in 1963, and led it for many years, becoming life president. In her time many booklets were written, and translated into indigenous languages, to inform people of their legal rights under apartheid. In the 1980s the Black Sash formed a sub-committee called The Transvaal Rural Action Committee (TRAC) which was later part of the National Land Committee assisting the non-white communities that were subject to forced land removals. It would also create and fund the Rural Women's Movement (RWM), supporting rural non-white women rights in regards to inheritance and land ownership, in 1986. TRAC employed

Lydia Kompe Makwena Lydia Komape-Ngwenya (née Ngwenya; born 6 August 1935), also known as Lydia Kompe, is a retired South African politician, activist, and trade unionist. She represented the African National Congress in the National Assembly from 1994 to ...

to coordinate the RWM in 1986, and

Nomhlangano Beauty Mkhize Nomhlangano Beauty Mkhize was a South African activist, politician, shop steward and wife to late Saul Mkhize. She was born in Sophia Town and she was forcibly removed to Meadowlands in Soweto and that's where she met her husband. Early years ...

, from Driefontein, became its first chairperson. In 1983, the Black Sash called for the abolition of military conscription. The organisation was instrumental in establishing the

End Conscription Campaign The End Conscription Campaign was an anti-apartheid organisation allied to the United Democratic Front and composed of conscientious objectors and their supporters in South Africa. It was formed in 1983 to oppose the conscription of all white ...

to campaign against compulsory military service by young white men.

End of Apartheid

The Black Sash's resistance movement came to an end in the early 1990s with the end of apartheid, the unbanning of the

ANC The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

and the release of Nelson Mandela from imprisonment. Its role was recognised by Nelson Mandela on his release and by subsequent political leaders. Prior to the 1994 multi-racial elections, Black Sash conducted voter education and produced a booklet called ''You and the Vote''. The organisation was reformed in 1995 as a non-racial humanitarian organisation, working to 'make human rights real for all living in South Africa'. In May 2015, the organisation celebrated its 60th anniversary as it shifted its focus towards education, training, advocacy and community monitoring. The celebration of the Black Sash history was also marked by the launching of two books, namely ''Standing on Street Corners: a History of the Natal Midlands Region of the Black Sash'' and a biography by Annemarie Hendrikz''.''

National Presidents

* Ruth Foley 1955 - 1957 * Molley Petersen 1958 - 1959 * Eulalie Doreen Stott 1960 - 1961 * Jean Sinclair 1961 – 1975 * Sheena Duncan 1976 – 1978 * Joyce Harris 1979 - 1982 * Sheena Duncan 1983 – 1986 * Maria Macdiarmid "Mary" Burton 1987 – 1990 * Jennifer de Tolly 1991 – 1994

References

*Bernstein, H., 1975. ''For their triumphs and for their tears - Women in Apartheid South Africa'', International Defence & Aid Fund, London, United Kingdom. *A small collection o
Black Sash papers
can be found at the Borthwick Institute, University of York

External links