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Mrs. Lilian Ngoyi, dynamic Presi­ Mrs. Helen Joseph, secretary of the I Mrs. Rahima Moosa, a member of | Miss Bertha Mashaba, executive dent of the African National Con­ Transvaal Region of the Women’s the Working Committee of the Miss Sophia Williams, a member of ! member of the A.N.C. Women’s gress Women’s League and vice-pre­ Federation, and a member^ of the | Transvaal Indian Congress, and a the executive and organiser of the League, and secretary of the Wo- sident of the Women’s P'ederation. nationai executive of the Congress member of the executive of the Wo- SA. Coloured People’s Organisation. men’s Branch in Germiston. of Democrats. men’s Federation. They Will Lead Protest Pretoria! speak as Women and Mothers 9 5 JOHANNESBURG.—WOMEN OF THE TRANSVAAL ARE GOING TO PRE­ TORIA ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27 TO PUT THEIR DEMANDS TO THE GOV­ ERNMENT. HUNDREDS OF WOMEN OF ALL RACES HAVE ALREADY VOLUN­ TEERED TO TAKE PART IN THIS INTER-RACIAL PROTEST AND ON THEIR NEWNORTHERN EDITION RegisteredIGE at G.P.O. as a Newspaper BEHALF, THE FEDERATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN HAS ASKED THE: MINISTER OF NATIVE AFFAIRS, THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR AND THE Vol. 1, No. 51. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1955 PRICE 3d. MINISTER OF LABOUR TO RECEIVE THE MASS DEPUTATION. The African women taking part in the protest will demand free­ dom of movement, the right to homes where they choose, real education for their children. They will protest specifically against the threat to make African women carry passes, and Bantu Educatioik Indian women will protest against backs; wearing their national and the Group Areas Act. church costumes. Old women »nd Coloured women taking part in young will take part, and among the protest will demonstrate against those who have already volunteered Classification. “What category do are grandmothers of 70 and over. YOU fall in? What language do ou speak? What do you look like? ThCape Town Supreme T AM secretary of the Ermelo ANC and work as a lorry-driver. should fight tooth and nail to be Court listened to argument on whether a woman had arrived On the day of the raids the police chased the lorry in their car free. Let us defend our rights and in the city in 1937 or in 1941. . and stopped me. nationality. They ordered me to go quickly Two people had told a Native Commissioner that she had and leave the lorry at the police .. . Newclare We are not supposed to rear station. No, 1 said, I am not going cattle, sheep, goats or dogs on our arrived in 1941. Three others and the woman herself had said to leave my lorry at the police A mass meeting of Africans land. All we bave to do is to work she came in 1937. The Native Commissioner believed the former, station. Why? they asked. Because held under the auspices of the until we die. There are no doctors rejected the woman’s evidence. 1 do not work at the police sta­ Newclare Branch of the ANC. to attend to the poor sick people. tion. 1 will leave the lorry at the Transvaal condemned the recent This is the kind of oppression African workers suffer in their And now an appeal court was deciding whether there was place 1 work. raids on the organisations and reason to overturn the Native Commissioner’s decision. All right, quick, they said—they homes of the leaders and the peo­ own country. Working hours are used that word in Afrikaans— ple as a fascist method of intimi­ from the dawn of day until after Why was it so important? quick. dation and suppression of all op­ sunset. They took me home by car and position to the Nationalist Gov­ BECAUSE IF THE WOMAN COULD NOT SHOW THAT ernment. To those Africans who have after I had studied the search what is called “slave mentality” I SHE CAME TO CAPE TOWN BEFORE JUNE, 1937, SHE warrant, I said. All right, come in The meeting also protested say, “Africans, let us be united, WOULD BE TAKEN UNDER POLICE ESCORT AWAY and look as much as you can, and against the pass laws which have let us join the African National gave them every scrap of paper to brought misery and hardship to Congress, the only national politi­ FROM CAPE TOWN—AWAY FROM HER HUSBAND AND read. Very soon they were tired African families, and condemned cal organisation formed by Afri­ FAMILY. to look. the plot to extend these wicked cans themselves. This is the only They asked me if I went to the laws to our women-folk. organisation in which we see the This is Strijdom’s law. This is the law of apartheid. Unless Congress of the People. Yes, I It called upon all women to shadow of our freedom and ex­ said. press our desire.” she could show that she had remained in Cape Town lawfully What were you doing there? stand side by side with the men in their struggle for abolition of F. W. L. MacANA. and continuously for fifteen full years before the merciless amend­ Drawing the Freedom Charter. pass laws, and called upon people ment to the Native Urban Areas Act in June 1952, the woman How are you going to get free­ to join their organisations so that Duncan Village, East London. dom? must go. The Native Commissioner was there to see to that. As all other nations get it. they may bring about the defeat The police were there to see to it, and the judges of the Supreme Who is helping you? of the Nats. Nearly everybody is helping us. D. MALOPE. Court were there to see to it. Only the Nationalists are against ANC, Newclare, Tvl. Uiienhage Boycott The Crown was prepared to agree that Annie Silinga had peace. arrived in 1941. But the fourteen long years from 1941 to 1955 What is peace? Four young ladies of the Uiten- Peace is freedom. hage Branch of the. ANC have were not enough. What does that mean? volunteered to give up their spare There is no peace when there is . .. Grahamsiown time to running cultural clubs for In 1941 which was the latest (the Crown was prepared to no freedom. Grahamstown was also involved the over 400 children who are agree) that Annie Silinga arrived in Cape Town, South Africa —So they left me because I boycotting the schools. didn’t know what I was talking in the “Big Raids.’’ Congress offi­ had been at war with the Nazis. Men and women, white and about. cials were searched; some were The happy boycotters staged a black, were giving their lives to smash Nazi laws, to win a world ^ S. A. NHLEKO. fetched from work. ANC docu­ reception in the Orient Bioscope of freedom. Ermelo, Tvl. ments were seized, for the investi­ Hall which was packed with a * * * gation of so-called “Communist” crowd of about 600 to hear ANC The fourteen years since have been long enough to see activity, “treason” and “sedition.” branch chairman. Rev. O. Cikolo those same Nazi laws entrenched here—but not long enough for . . . Lady Selborne Even private properties were con­ address them. On the day of the raids a gang fiscated. Annie Silinga to be able to establish her right to live in the M. M. PHANGOLO. home that she and her husband had created. I of police arrived at the house of We are protesting strongly. Uitenhage. the ANC secretary in Lady Sel­ STANLEY B. G. KABA. borne. He wasn’t at home so they (Sorry there was no room for For five hours the Crown and the defence battled tensely left a guard at his house and went Grahamstown. the photograph of the happy over the four precious years. Each word of the Native Commis­ to look for him at his work. At children with the four ANC sioner was probed and analysed to see if it could be shown that llbrk too they failed to get him so volunteers—Editor.) they watched his house until the he was wrong in rejecting the statement of the man who said evening, when they got tired and that he was the tenant of the house where Annie Silinga had went home. . . . Bloemioniein first come to live when she came to Cape Town, and that was Other ANC leaders in Pretoria —and mainly in Lady Selborne— All Congress officials and com­ 1937, and how he remembered that Annie had helped his wife were also raided. mittee members were raided. Even No School Commiliee when their baby was born in 1938; the evidence of the seam­ The branch is leading the peo­ photographs showing members of stress who had come to Cape Town in 1936 and who said that ple in protest against the raids. Congress giving the thumbs up At a meeting in the Presbyterian she remembered Annie arriving the following year; the evidence Afrika! Freedom in our life­ salute were taken. A typewiter School the parents re-affirmed time! was removed from the provincial their decision not to help the gov­ of Mr. Silinga who said that he sent Annie to Cape Town in PETER MAGANO. secretary’s premises. ernment impose slave education 1937 because of her ill-health. ANC, Lady Selborne, Pretoria. We are angry but unperturbed. by taking part in the election of Signatures for the Freedom:doi Char­ school committees. Carefully and in detail the defence pointed to errors in the ter are being collected and we are This decision was taken in spite Native Commissioner’s reasoning, improbabilities in his con­ preparing to welcome delegates to of the presence of three members clusions. the great conference in December. of the special branch. When All roads will lead to Bloemfon­ The judges retired to consider their verdict and the women tein. E. K. NDZIBA. Retreat, Cape. who had crowded the gallery all day, listening in grim silence LESLIE S. MONNANYANE. to the argument, sat tense and waited. ANC, Bloemfontein. NERVE It was Justice van Wyk who delivered the judgment—it was one of his first judgments, for he had been elevated to the Bench this very month. Many of the criticisms of the Native Commis­ PAINS ... And Again Noi Chrisiianiiy sioners reasoning were correct, he declared. But even taking that A very spirited parents’ meeting into account there was not good reason to overturn his decision. When I grew up in the Bechu- in the Athlone Bantu Community strike! analand Protectorate, they used to School last week again rejected Annie Silinga had failed to discharge the onus of showing Mag-Aspirin is better. Its double tell me about the missionaries and the very idea of electing a parents’ that she had come before June 1937. And fourteen years was action gives quick, safe relief. the religion that the missionaries committee to serve Verwoerd’s It calms nerve shock, gently brought which was to preach Bantu Education Act. not enough. soothes away the pain in the equality, liberty and brotherhood among the nations. But to my sur­ The parents were indignant that affected nerves and restores they were called a second time to health-giving sleep. Thousands prise, today the missionaries don’t do what they came for. Their decide this issue, as they had only ''J'H E Freedom Charter declares: of sufferers have found Mag- daily preach is Apartheid, Baas- recently shown their firm determi­ Aspirin the ideal treatment for skap, Kaffirs, Hottentots and nation to have nothing to do with painful conditions like headache, this most humiliating and detest­ All shall be free to travel without restriction from coun­ bladder pain, earache, toothache, Coolies. The religion that is taught in Africa is not a true able Act which aims solely at the tryside to town, from province to province, and from South sore throat, sleeplessness and perpetuation of African servitude. Africa abroad; rheumatic pains. Christianity at all. Today, when our leaders are or­ We, here at Athlone will not Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting those ganising round the demands in the relent in our struggle against this Freedom Charter, what is the re­ vicious education system. “Though freedoms shall be abolished! mnc-nspiRin ply from our so-called religious our children suffer now, no parent is not ordinary aspirin teachers? The reply is to turn their should soil his hand in handicap­ For those who passed the law which drives Annie Silinga backs on us. That is not true ping our children for all time,” from her home, such a declaration is treason. Mafl-Aspirln Powders, 21- per box. Also Christianity at all! said one speaker. ilviUlabIc in Tablets at 2/6 at all chemists LET THE WORLD DECIDE and stores. J. C. S. MODIKWB. M. MAGQAZA. WHO ARE THE |^orst?n, Port Klizabetk, Athlone, Cape Town. TRAITORS! LYNCH-LAWAGAIN STRIKES NEGROES Bulganin Pins U.S. Down

AMERICA IS ON TRIAL on Arms Reduction LONDON.—The foreign ministers of the Western powers, in­ NEW YORK. cluding West Germany, were meeting in New York last week to try The lynching of Emmett Till, 14-year-old Negro boy began as a piece of hideous race inti­ and iron out some form of common policy with which to face the midation by a group of small-time white supremacists in a county of Mississippi in America’s Soviet Union when the Geneva Conference of foreign ministers deep South. In one of the most scandalously faked trials in recent American history the resumes on October 27. The Geneva meeting is a continuation of the recent “meeting at the summit” at which Bulganin, Eisenhower, two lynchers had no difficulty in getting oflE. They were acquitted of murder by an all- Eden and the French Premier agreed on the first historic turn against white jury who spent little time on the verdict. the “cold war.” But although the murderers have escaped for the time being, The Geneva Conference therefore [ support in Britain and France and the case has gone much further and the whole of America is now ranks highest in world diplomacy j has severely restricted the American on trial in the eyes of the world. What will the American Govern­ with much depending on it for the tendency to wriggle out of any ment authorities, Federal and State, do to bring the murderers to future peace and co-operation of committment on disarmament or justice and protect the terrorised Negro population? the world’s nations. reduction of atomic weapons. Chief item on the agenda of the The Observer’s diplomatic cor- This question is being angrily put balming the body, he had been un­ conference will unquestionably be i respondent warns that it is “clearly not only by millions of Negroes and able to build up parts of the face the Soviet insistence on practical I urgent” for the West to produce liberty-loving people in America to resemble a human countenance. steps towards disarmament and the some unified policy on “the prob­ itself but in bitter protests pouring People would not be able to reduction of tension. At Geneva a lem of reduction of forces and the in from all parts of the world. stand the sight of it. The mother beginning was made towards a real elimination of nuclear weapons.” The story of Emmett Till is brief ordered: study of these problems and for the The paper says Bulganin’s let­ and tragic. His mother lives in “Open the casket! Open it! first time the Americans had to get ter is welcome in London “in so Chicago and works in a responsible Let the people see what lynchers down out of the realm of fancies far as it will have the effect of 3,900 dollar a year Government job did to a child! I want the people and look the facts in the face. bringing the Eisenhower admini­ stration down to earth.” and the boy himself had suffered to see what they have to fight.” PINNED DOWN from polio. She sent him on a Bulganin’s letter was a brilliant The coffin was opened. A wo­ Despite American efforts to climb family visit to her home town in man fainted; rage and sobbing summary of the Soviet position. It Mississippi where he stayed with out of offers they had themselves showed the fundamental difference swept through the huge crowds. It previously supported, they found his uncle, aged 64, a share-cropper was long before the mother re­ between the two sides. While the and one-time preacher. themselves gradually but surely West continues to concern itself gained control. Then she spoke to pinned down by world pressure, the crowds filing past: about control, Russia is concerned “WOLF-WHISTLE” coupled with the peace initiative with reduction. “See for yourselves what they coming from Russia. Emmett went to a nearby hamlet The Observer says the West’s % m of Money to buy bubblegum and a might do to your son. It could Eisenhower, who has done much happen to any Negro boy. See for to put into reverse the fantastic ideas may be made at Geneva “to young white woman working in the look like hopeless confusion by grocery later complained that the yourselves and make up your sabre-rattling policies of his own minds to put an end to it. This Secretary of State, Dulles, proposed Russia’s apparently reasonable in­ 14-year-old boy “rolled his eyes Roy Bryant, 24, one of the lynchers sistence on first principles.” and made a wolf-whistle” at her. isn’t just for Emmett, because he in the Till case. He claimed that his strange plan for air reconnais­ At three next morning three can’t be helped any more; but if sance by both sides of the other’s The New Statesman and Nation, what we see here will teach us a the 14-year-old Negro boy made territory. ^ often an acid critic of the Soviet white men and a woman drove to eyes at his “beautiful” wife. the uncle’s, shack, dragged Emmett lesson it will be safer for other But since then, Eisenhower re­ Union, concedes the importance of out at the point of a gun. “He’s the boys.” ceived his dramatic letter from Bul­ Bulganin’s letter as “not only a drink pop, it wouldn’t have taken formidable essay in diplomacy, but one,” said the woman. The lyn­ The trial of Bryant and Milam that long.” ganin which he was studying at the chers then took him off to a barn. took place before an independent time of his heart attack. Bulganin's also a serious contribution to the It was only outside pressure that letter has found surprisingly firm problem (of disarmament).” There they lashed him, beat circuit judge but he had to contend forced the arrest of Bryant and his face in and fractured his skull with an all-white jury from Talla­ Milam and then action had to be and finally put a bullet into his hatchie County. Two-thirds of the taken by the Sheriff of a different brain. They bound his body with population are Negroes but so county. Intimidation was so intense barbed wire, tied a heavy pulley- great is the terrorism and oppres­ that some Negro witnesses were wheel to it and threw it into the sion that there is not one Negro too terrified even to make their BUT JiM CROW Tallahatchie river. Three days on the voters’ roll or on the jury voices heard in court while two, later it was brought in by fisher­ rolls. Time magazine admitted the one an eye-witness, were kept men. trial took place in an atmosphere away from the court altogether. SUFFERS BLOW Two white men, Bryant, hus­ of “blind hatred.” Local whites raised 10,000 dollars band of the girl in the grocery, The local Sheriff did nothing to to defend the lynchers and employed Against the resistance of six lina opened their doors this au­ and Milam, his half-brother, were help punish the offenders. On the five resident lawyers and “experts” States and the creation of some 13 tumn for the first time to indicted by a grand jury for mur­ contrary, he said the whole case including a doctor and embalmer white racist groups, the so-called Negroes. der. had been “rigged” and actually to show the body could not be that de-segregation of education in the Many of the white racist bodies When the body was returned to gave evidence for the defence in of Emmett. But the boy was wear­ American South is now fairly under formed to fight the Supreme Court Chicago in a coffin 50,000 people, support of their contention that ing his father’s ring engraved with way with the opening of the new order are relatively small though mainly Negroes, attended the fune­ “outside agitators” spirited away his initials. school term. Eleven States which others are having considerable suc­ ral. Emmett’s mother prayed over Emmett and put another body in No proper police effort was formerly officially discriminated cess in stirring up bitter, die-hard the body “Lord, you gave your the river in the hope of stirring made to establish the identity of against Negro school-children and opposition and are creating an at­ only son to remedy a condition. up a “race relations trial.” the body. Bryant and Milam ad­ students have now accepted the rul­ mosphere of fear and intimidation. Let the death of my only son bring The jury thought this a won­ mitted dragging^ Emmett out but ing of the U.S. Supreme Court and Even where de-segregation has an end to lynching.” derful way out After a^ four- said they let him go when they hy degrees they are complying with 3een accomplished the problems day trial they retired for just on found he was the wrong boy. The the law. are by no means at an end. Some UNWISE an hour to make their decision, jury accepted this story. The States opposing the Federal experts think the most serious prob- The undertaker said it would be “Not guilty.” Said one of the law are, naturally, the most noto­ ems only then begin. unwise to open the coffin. Em­ jurors: “If we hadn’t stopped to FEAR OF LYNCHING rious jim-crow regions of the “Deep Mr. Hobart Corning, school South”—Alabama, Georgia, Loui­ superintendent in the District of Negro witnesses, including Em­ Columbia has recently said there is mett’s uncle have fled from the siana, Mississippi and North and South Carolina. In these states the a vast difference between de-segre­ county for fear of lynching. gation and integration. World-wide protests are best authorities have prepared for the DONGES’ ATTACK ON abolition of the public school “De-segregation, the mechanical summed up in the words of a great moving of people and things, has American, the write^ William system and the withdrawal of finan­ cial support if de-segregation is peen completed in the district,” he Faulkner, himself a native of Mis­ said. “But integration, the conver­ NEHRU CONDEMNED sissippi. Writing from Rome, these ordered by the local courts, follow­ ing the Supreme Court order. sion of the two segments of the were his words to America: school into a smooth-running sin­ “Perhaps we will find out now The best record so far is in the World Spotlight is on Union district of Columbia in which gle system, still requires the work whether we are to survive or not. of all.” Perhaps the purpose of this sorry Washington is situated. Here, Presi­ —Naicker and tragic error committed in rny dent Eisenhower personally used native Mississippi by two white his influence to see that the terrible TAR. G. M[. NAICKER, Acting President of the South African Indian adults on an afflicted Negro child reproach of colour discrimination BOTH CHINA AND EGYPT Congress has strongly criticised the remarks made by Dr. T. E. is to prove to us whether or not was removed from America’s front have ratified an important trade Donges at the Nationalist Party meeting in Grahamstown last week we deserve to survive. Because if door. The entire school system of agreement establishing important when Dr. Donges attacked Pandit Nehru and said that he did not vrish we in America have reached the the district has been changed and commercial relationships and trade to see South Africa made a “dumping ground for India’s surplus popula­ point in our desperate culture when white and Negro children and between the two countries. tion.” we must murder children, no matter youths sit harmoniously in the same for what reason, or what colour, classrooms in every educational in -o- “Attacks like this made by Dr. THREAT TO PEACE we don’t deserve to survive, and stitution. fl'.J Donges at Grahamstown,” says Dr. “The reason why Pandit Nehru probably won’t.” Naicker, “will not help to camou­ has spoken out against apartheid SLOW PROGRESS Grave Diggers Disloyal? ! and segregation is because he with flage the real basis for the Nationa­ In other states of the South de LONDON. list Governments’ dislike for Pandit the rest of the democratic world Nehru. It is foolish for Dr. Donges believe that the anti-democratic Australians For Peace segregation is steadily going for The Greek fascist Ministry of the policy of the Union Government is ward. A typical example is Dela Interior has ordered “political reli­ to suggest that Pandit Nehru, a life­ MELBOURNE. ware where 21 out of 104 districts long opponent of colonialism and a grave threat to world peace. Pan­ Over 250,000 Australians had ability” tests for all employees of imperialism, has any territorial or dit Nehru has said no more than signed the world appeal against have been de-segregated compared town councils, including the hum- colonial designs on South Africa what the United Nations has said atomic weapons by the end of last with 12 a year ago. In Oklahoma blest labourers. Refusing to operate repeatedly since 1946. City the entire school system has the tests, the Mayor of Athens, Mr, or any part of Africa. month. Australians coupled the been integrated. “In any case the inhuman Immi­ “With the United Nations Gene­ campaign with protests against the Katsotas, said “We cannot agree grants Regulations Act of 1913 has ral Assembly once again in session use of their country as an atom Progress is also being made in that it is permissible today to de­ brought to an end the entry of the spotlight of the world will bomb testing ground. The vast colleges and universities. All mand these certificates from road Asians into the Union and hence 1 again be cast on the colour attitudes majority of Australians, pid Rev. state colleges in Oklahoma are sweepers, grave diggers and other Dr. Donges or for that matter any­ of the ruling white classes of South Norman Anderson, Chairman of now open to Negro students; all workers. This would constitute real one else can have no fear about Africa. It will not help Dr. Donges the National Peace Convention, teachers’ colleges in Maryland tyranny.” The certificates have to South Africa becoming a ‘dumping to use the tactics of attacking Pan­ are increasingly desirous that atomic have been de-segregated and a be obtained from the political police dit Nehru as a form of self-defence energy should be diverted to peace­ number of old institutions includ­ and are issued only to ardent sup­ ground’ for India’s surplus popu­ porters of the dictatorship. lation.” for the Union Government.” ful purposes. ing the University of North Caro-

Collection Number: AG2887 Collection Name: Publications, New Age, 1954-1962

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