African Activist Archive

Contents: HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN'S DAY • SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN'S FUND • $TOP BANKING ON APARTHEID • The program includes Poetry Presentation; ''Why We Come to Celebrate"; For Their Triumphs: Celebrating Black Women's Resistance to Apartheid; Feminism: Differences between the U.S. and South Africa; U.S. Economic Support of Apartheid; Supporting the South African Women's Fund; Questions and Answers; and Crossroads: A Community Defies Apartheid (film). The South African government extended the much-hated pass law to African women in the 1950s. All Africans must carry passes that state where they can and cannot be at a given time. African women responded to this imposition with militant protest. In October 1955, 2,000 women, predominately African but including women of all other races, converged in Pretoria. Then on August 9, 1956, 20,000 women of all races assembled, despite tremendous difficulties and intimidation. All processions in Pretoria were banned that day, so the women walked to the government building to see the Prime Minister in groups of twos and threes. The program says the SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN'S FUND was formed in January 1980 to provide political education in the United States about Black women's oppression in South Africa and to provide material support to these women. U.S. banks and corporations have a long history of supporting the white minority in South Africa and benefiting from apartheid; most of these bank loans have gone directly to the government or its state-owned industries. The program says a major part of U.S. bank loans are trading credit so that South Africa can buy from the U.S.; 40% of its oil comes from U.S. companies; U.S. cars, trucks, planes, computers, and armaments build the regime's self-sufficiency. The program quotes Lillian Ngoyi and includes freedom song refrain: "Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock, you have dislodged a boulder, you will be crushed." The program mentions the African National Congress (ANC), petitions, Bank of America (BofA), Crocker National Bank, Security Pacific National Bank, United California Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, French Bank, Sumitomo Bank, Union Bank, Chartered Bank of London, redlining, and the right to unionize.

African Activist Archive

SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN'S DAY

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