Women's March in South Africa: 70 Years Later
AFRICA
Photo: Neil McCartney/The Citizen
South Africa marked the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Women's March on Sunday, commemorating the roughly 20,000 women who marched on Pretoria to protest apartheid-era pass laws that restricted Black women's movement. The demonstration remains a landmark moment in the campaign against white minority rule, and survivors including Ramnie Dinat, who as a teenager helped organize women door-to-door ahead of the march, joined tributes marking the occasion.
Many of the march's leaders were later held at Johannesburg's Women's Jail, where activists were segregated by race and subjected to degrading treatment, including denial of underwear and sanitary supplies. The site, now a museum near the Constitutional Court, honors both prominent figures such as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Albertina Sisulu alongside thousands of lesser-known participants.
Seventy years on, women including Paralympic tennis champion Kgothatso Montjane say the march's legacy enabled their achievements while underscoring that the struggle continues, citing persistent gender-based violence, economic exclusion and underrepresentation in leadership. Solidarity with International solidarity with women facing war was expressed. Museum officials and marchers alike frame today's challenges as a different form of the same fight for freedom of movement and full participation in society, with Dinat noting that each generation must decide anew whether it will stand up for what is right.