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Black Sash
The Black Sash is a South African human rights organisation. It was founded in Johannesburg in 1955 as a non-violent 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 vote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 South African men into military service in the South African Defence Force. Apartheid government's policy on military conscription The apartheid government had a policy of compulsory conscription for young white men who were expected to perform military service at regular intervals, starting with an extended training which began in the year immediately following the one in which they left school or as soon as they turned 16, whichever came last. Many were granted deferment, for example to attend University and complete an undergraduate degree first, but very few young men were exempted from conscription for any reason other than being medically unfit or for a race classification error. Valid reasons included conscientious objection b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borthwick Institute For Archives
The Borthwick Institute for Archives is the specialist archive service of the University of York, York, England. It is one of the biggest archive repositories outside London. The Borthwick was founded in 1953 as The Borthwick Institute of Historical Research. It was originally based at St Anthony's Hall, a fifteenth-century guild hall on Peasholme Green, in central York. Since 2005 it has been based in a purpose-built building, situated adjacent to the JB Morrell Library on the University of York's Heslington West campus. This new building was made possible due to a grant of £4.4 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund and designed by Leach Rhodes Walker and Buro Happold. Archivists and directors Five archivists have headed the Borthwick Institute, all of them serving under their predecessors. In 2005, the title was changed from "Director" to "Keeper of Archives", and was further expanded to "Keeper of Archives & Special Collections" in 2019. *Canon John Stanley Purvis - 1953-1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Zille
Otta Helene Maree (''née'' Zille ; born 9 March 1951), known as Helen Zille, is a South African politician. She has served as the Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance since 20 October 2019. From 2009 until 2019, she was the Premier of the Western Cape province for two five-year terms, and a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. She served as Federal Leader of the Democratic Alliance from 2007 to 2015 and as Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009. Zille is a former journalist and anti-apartheid activist and was one of the journalists who exposed the cover-up around the death of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko while working for the '' Rand Daily Mail'' in the late 1970s. She also worked with the Black Sash and other pro-democracy groups during the 1980s. In the political arena, Zille has served in all three tiers of government, as the Western Cape's education MEC (1999–2001), as a Member of Parliament (2004–2006), as Mayor of Cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Robb
Ruth Noël Robb (born Barrow on 25 December 1913 - January 2009) was a South African activist and member of the Black Sash. Biography Robb was born in Plymouth on 25 December 1913. Robb most often went by her middle name, Noël. She graduated from Bedford College in 1935 or 1936 and after college, got a job working in Cape Town at St. Cyprians School. She worked at St. Cyprians School for four years. She married Francis Charles Robb in December 1939 and he wanted her to stay at home and raise children, which she did. The couple had five children and Robb continued to do philanthropic work. Robb graduated from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts. She later earned an honorary masters degree in social science from UCT in 1994. Robb died in Cape Town in January 2009. Activism Robb was one of the original founding members of Black Sash, starting in 1955 when it was still called The Women's Defence of the Constitution League. She didn't want black ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Renault
Eileen Mary Challans (4 September 1905 – 13 December 1983), known by her pen name Mary Renault ("She always pronounced it 'Ren-olt', though almost everyone would come to speak of her as if she were a French car." ), was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in ancient Greece. Born in Forest Gate in 1905, she attended St Hugh's College, Oxford, from 1924 until 1928. After graduating from St Hugh's with a Third Class in English, she worked as a nurse and began writing her first novels, which were contemporary romances. In 1948, she moved to South Africa with her partner Julie Mullard, where she spent the rest of her life. Living in South Africa allowed her to write about openly gay characters without fearing the censorship and homophobia of England. She devoted herself to writing historical fiction in the 1950s, which were also her most successful books. She is best known for her historical fiction today. Renault's works are often rooted in themes related ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Hayman
Ruth Hayman (1913 - 1981) was a lawyer and anti-apartheid campaigner. She was one of the first women in South Africa to qualify as an attorney. Through the Black Sash organisation, Hayman offered free legal advice to many people, usually women, who had approached the Black Sash Advice Centre in Johannesburg, and often appeared herself in court to represent them. She also defended the anti-apartheid activists Walter and Adelaine Hain, parents of the British Cabinet Minister Peter Hain. Her activities brought her into direct opposition with the National Party government, and on 22 April 1966 she was served with a "banning order" under the Suppression of Communism Act and placed under house arrest. "This banning was, according to Sydney Kentridge, 'inexplicable save on the assumption that it was a punishment for her professional work' ('Legal Aid and Political Trials' in ''Legal Aid in South Africa'' (1974) 215). The Transvaal Law Society refused to come to her aid. This sent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandra Botha
Celia-Sandra Botha (born 25 February 1945) is a South African politician, who served as South Africa's Ambassador to the Czech Republic. She is the former Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, on behalf of the Democratic Alliance and its leader, Helen Zille. She announced her intention to step down from the position after the 2009 South African general election, to become an ambassador. Her term in Prague ended in June 2013. She will reportedly not seek a leadership position in South Africa, but will participate in political life, and be part of the "battle of ideas". Early life and career Born to an Afrikaner farming family in Viljoenskroon, Orange Free State, as early as the 1960s, Botha convinced local farmers to employ a social worker to service the needs of the rural black families. She also held talks with the Citrus Board for further winter aid for farmworkers. Having matriculated from Parys High School, Botha went on to complete a year in New York with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feminism In South Africa
Feminism in South Africa concerns the organised efforts to improve the rights of the girls and women of South Africa. These efforts are largely linked to issues of feminism and gender equality on one hand, and racial equality and the political freedoms of African and other non-White South African ethnic groups on the other. Early feminist efforts concerned the suffrage of White women, allowing them to vote in elections beginning from 1930s, and significant activism in the 1950s to demand equal pay of men and women. The 1980s were a major turning point in the advancement of South African women, and in 1994, following the end of the apartheid regime, the status of women was bolstered by changes to the country's constitution. Since the end of apartheid, South African feminism is a contribution associated with the liberation and democratization of the country, however, the movement still struggles with the embedded conservative and patriarchal views within some segments of South Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African National Congress
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 installed Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the organisation was formed to agitate, by moderate methods, for the rights of black South Africans. When the National Party government came to power in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techniques of mass politics, and the swelling of its membership, culminated in the Defiance Campaign of civil disobedience in 1952–53. The ANC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
