lifespan, however, was short. During the action-oriented period of the 1950s (1952 was the start of the defiance campaign) the masses no longer tolerated the political debates and discussions in which SOYA had immersed itself. They wanted action. Some of SOYA’s members felt the same way. Parkies Setiloane explains:
What did not impress me about SOYA was that it was highly critical of the ANC. We never took action in SOYA like the ANC. We never took part in the defiance campaign ... SOYA would argue that they [the ANC] are wisening up the white man to come up with more stringent laws. We said let’s hit them where it hurts the most, which was educating the masses. And then take action once! We would target labourers, teachers, ministers – everybody. And once we embarked on a strike action there’ll be a standstill.
SOYA’s intention to ‘educate the masses’ remained only an idea. It was never implemented. Finally, some of its members, among them Parkies Setiloane, left the location – in his case for a teaching post on the farms – and SOYA ceased to function in Kroonstad. But SOYA’s demise should also be read in the context of the state’s attempt to curtail black incitement and protest. For instance, in 1953 the government passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which increased the penalties for civil disobedience, incitement and protest.
The revival of radical politics
Although the rolling out of the defiance campaign in 1952, led mainly by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress, did not produce the same extraordinary response in Kroonstad as it did in some areas of the Eastern Cape like Port Elizabeth and East London, it nevertheless helped to revive the ANC in the locations. Residents, ostensibly members of the ANC, embarked on mass political mobilisation and demonstrations – albeit briefly. From oral evidence it is apparent that before or during the campaign ANC leaders visited Kroonstad, a visit possibly prompted by a lack of action in the town’s locations during the ANC’s call for a national stay-at-home on 26 June 1950.61 Recalling the visit, Mekodi Arcilia Morailane (now Mokoena), who was born in 1946 in Bloemfontein and had moved to Kroonstad by 1952, remembered seeing Walter Sisulu (during this period the ANC’s only full-time paid official). It was not long after this visit that Amon Mahomane, Esther Montshiwa and Joseph Ditaole Lenong led a demonstration to the municipal offices to complain about the excessive number of whites working in municipal offices, increased rent, and the proposed ejection of all unmarried young men from their homes in the locations to be housed in municipal hostels.
The news of a reputable law firm owned by Africans seems to have boosted the confidence of the black residents of Kroonstad to fight for their rights. The residents of the locations became aware of the Mandela and Tambo law firm, which was established in 1951, when Oliver Tambo travelled to Kroonstad to represent Mphikeleli Maseko, a prominent businessman in the area. Maseko had shot and killed a thief. Leboseng Violet Selele, Maseko’s daughter, described the event: ‘My father was involved in an incident. There were certain boys fighting with knives, trying to abduct my sister by force. My father intervened and shot and killed one of those boys. My father was arrested. And that was a problem. So my husband and I gathered some money to help where we could. Then we heard about Mandela and Oliver Tambo.’ Maseko was acquitted. This served as encouragement to the residents of the locations – even if they were arrested there were African lawyers who would represent them (Selele recalls that during this period the only lawyers in Kroonstad were Afrikaners).
Some teachers, even those at the day-care level, were becoming politically conscious, illustrating an awareness that bordered on radicalism, as is evident from what they taught. Morailane remembers that at her day-care, Dorcas House, learners were taught poems grounded in the history of dispossession. She recalls that during the visit by the ANC leaders, including Walter Sisulu, the children recited one of these poems as a form of entertainment. According to her, the poem went as follows:
Mo-Afrika, ke kgotsofetse ka se keleng sona. Le hoja naha ya rona e ne e se tshehla. Naha ya rona e fetohile lehaha la mashodu, teng ho phela batho ba mefuta yohle. Batho ba ikemiseditseng ho ripitla Mo-Afrika. [I am satisfied to be an African. Our country was never barren. It has been turned into a haven of thieves, where many people live. But some of these people are constantly preparing to destroy Africans (at which point she stamped her foot).]
Some of the members of the teaching staff at Dorcas House were members of the National Council of African Women (NCAW). Hilda Mantho Motadinyane was one. Until the late 1940s, the NCAW worked for the upliftment and upward mobility of African women. In the 1950s the organisation’s role had shifted and it became involved in political issues. Motadinyane joined the council after hearing one of its members, the late Winkie Direko, speaking about the Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act, which was introduced in 1952, making it compulsory for women to carry reference books.
It does not look as if the ANC had a branch in Kroonstad at the time, although there were people who supported it: Curnick Ndamse, a teacher at Bantu High, was one of its staunch followers, as was Reverend Mahabane – having been the president-general of the ANC twice (1924–27 and 1937–40), he must have influenced some of the residents in the locations in favour of the ANC.
Political momentum was growing in Kroonstad’s black locations. The government’s decision to promulgate the Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act intensified the situation. Recounting the indignation women felt about this law, Maggie Resha, a resident of Sophiatown and a member of the ANC Women’s League, wrote: ‘To extend the pass laws was to pull down the wall which protected the women from the humiliation of carrying these documents.’62 Throughout South Africa, women incensed by the Act protested. In a bid to coordinate the protests, 150 women from different parts of the country converged in Johannesburg in 1954 to adopt a ‘Women’s Charter’ and launch a new organisation, the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw). The following year, 2 000 women from the Transvaal marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria with a petition to the then prime minister, JG Strijdom. The fact that Strijdom snubbed the women did not deter them and they were to march again in 1956. Before that, however, in March 1956, African women marched ‘in virtually all the major cities ... from locations into city centres to hand in petitions and protests to town clerks, native commissioners, magistrates and other local affiliates’.63 In Kroonstad the campaign was led by some of the older women (possibly members of the ANC Women’s League). The most prominent was Matseki Majoro, who had been active in politics prior to the anti-pass campaign. Violet Selele remembered that Majoro also led the fight against high rent.
This group comprised older women of the same age as my mother. They would go to the town hall in town to protest against rent. They also protested against [the] lodger’s permit.64 They would demand that they should be arrested. Indeed, they were arrested. But they were later released.
Michael ‘Baba’ Jordan, a long-time resident of Kroonstad, also recalled Majoro as an activist, while Godfrey Oliphant, another resident, remembered her as a powerful orator:
As sy gepraat het [when she spoke], people would listen. [Addressing people she would say,] ‘It’s been long that we’ve been under the yoke of a white man’. Those were the words. ‘We’ve got to stand up as the people today and fight for our rights.’
Majoro is best remembered for her role in the anti-pass campaign. Selele recalled:
I can still remember I was sitting next to one of these women whose husband was a shopkeeper when I said, ‘Me Masielatsa, do you realise that there are some people here who will leave this meeting and go and tell the boers [police] that we don’t want passes. I think we should stop the meeting so that we can assess the situation’ ... here in Kroonstad we didn’t trust each other.
Selele’s fears were realised. Not long after the meeting, Matseke Majoro was detained. In an interview, John Modise recalled: ‘Matseki worked in town but she also liked to help other people within the community. She worked closely with Reverend Mahabane and
