“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” – Michelle Obama
Happy Women’s Day. Today is the day in which we celebrate the more than 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 to protest against the introduction of pass laws that were meant to control them.
Now, let’s back up. Initially, pass laws were introduced to restrict the movement of black men, right? But a further set of pass laws were introduced in 1952 to control the movement of black women in urban areas.
Apartheid was designed to segregate the different races but on that fateful Thursday, it brought them together. Leading the peaceful protest were Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn. All of these women represented a different race group, proving two things – wathint’umfazi, wathint’imbokodo and secondly, there’s nothing we cannot achieve if we work together.
Even today, their bold act of unity is still relevant. There are so many problems in this world and there are even more problems that target women specifically, but should we all band together, help each other, teach each other and just be there for each other, it would take the load off.
