Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan, p. 190.
39 Lodge, Black Politics, p. 6.
40 Johns SW (1970) ‘Trade Union, Political Pressure Group, or Mass Movement? The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa’, in Robert I Rotberg and Ali Mazrui (eds) Protest and Power in Black Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 716.
41 Bradford op. cit., p. 178.
42 Bradford op. cit., p. 69.
43 It is possible that Kadalie was becoming jealous of ’Mote’s rapidly increasing popularity in the OFS. In 1927, for example, at an ICU meeting held in Parys, ’Mote was introduced by Simon Elias, who addressed about 600 people, as ‘my Jesus’, and when ’Mote ascended the platform to speak the crowd broke spontaneously into the song ‘God Save Africa’. FSPA SOO 1/1/47, No. 8/10 1946; see The Parys Post, 10 May 1927.
44 ’Mote was arrested for climbing the train in the section designated for whites, with the aim of informing the whites about the black people’s plight because of the council’s decision. See Serfontein op. cit., pp. 449–50.
45 Serfontein op. cit., p. 451.
46 Nieftagodien, N (2001) ‘The Implementation of Urban Apartheid on the East Rand, 1948–1973: The Role of Local Government and Local Resistance’. PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand.
47 Tetelman, M (1997) ‘We Can: Black Politics in Cradock, South Africa, 1984–85’. PhD thesis, Northwestern University, p. 26.
48 FSPA SOO 1/1/47, No. 8/10 1946 ‘Letter from Secretary of Education to the Secretary for Native Affairs, Pretoria’, 24 September 1927.
49 FSPA SOO 1/1/47, No. 8/10 1946 ‘Letter from Abiel Thabo Seele to the Secretary for Native Education, Bloemfontein’, 2 December 1936.
50 FSPA SOO 1/1/47, No. 8/10 1946 ‘Letter from Reverend C Jummen to the Secretary for Native Education, Bloemfontein’, 2 January 1937.
51 Cobley, AG (1990) Class and Consciousness: The Black Petty Bourgeoisie in South Africa, 1924 to 1950. New York: Greenwood Press, p. 69.
52 Tetelman op. cit., p. 26.
53 Bonner P and Nieftagodien N op. cit., p. 37.
54 Cobley op. cit., p. 208.
55 Setiloane op. cit., p. 5.
56 UWLHLP AD1947/65.2 (Box 39) Miscellaneous/Memoranda in South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR).
57 UWLHLP AD1433 (Box CK5.3) Kroonstad Joint Council: Letter: ‘letter from Father Martin to Rheinallt-Jones’, 27 October 1931.
58 See UWLHLP AD1433 (Box CK5.3) Kroonstad Joint Council: Letter: ‘letter from Father Martin Knight to Rheinallt-Jones’, 3 February 1932; ‘Letter from Rheinallt-Jones to Martin Knight’, 24 August 1932.
59 Ntantala op. cit
60 Ntantala op. cit., p. 120.
61 The reason for the ANC’s call for a national work stay-at-home was in protest against the shooting and killing of protesters by police on May Day in 1950.
62 Resha, M (1991) ‘Mangoana O Tsoara Thipa Ka Bohaleng’: My Life in the Struggle. Johannesburg: Cosaw, p. 112; see also Walker, C (1982) Women and Resistance in South Africa. London: Onyx Press.
63 Resha op. cit., p. 143.
64 The lodger’s permit contained the name of the wife and children, and a certain amount had to be paid every month. In 1939 the Native Advisory Board deputation requested, without success, that the name of the wife be removed from the lodger’s permit and the permit be reduced from 3 to 2 shillings per month; see Pherudi who’s who, p. 4.
65 Section 10 was introduced after the passing of the Native Laws Amendment Act of 1952. It determined which Africans had the right to be in the urban areas permanently. Those who were born in an urban area after the passing of the Act fell under section 10(1) (a); those who had worked continuously for one employer for ten years fell under section 10(1) (b); and, finally, section 10(1) (c) rights were allocated to women living in rural areas whose husbands possessed either section 10(1) (a) or (b). See, for example, Posel, D (1991) The Making of Apartheid 1948–1961: Conflict and Compromise. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
66 New Age, 30 April 1959.
67 Lodge, T. (2011) Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and Its Consequences. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 100.
68 Callinicos, L (2005) Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 254–6.
69 Lodge Sharpeville, p. 58.
70 Lodge Sharpeville, p. 200.
71 For a detailed account of the potato farm prisons in Bethal, see First, R (1947) ‘The Farm Labour Scandal’, New Age, Pamphlet 1947; Drum, March 1952.
CHAPTER TWO
‘Kroonstad was now aware’: The Black Consciousness Movement and student demonstrations, 1972–1976
The back of black political resistance was broken – albeit temporarily – after the banning of the ANC and PAC, and those political activists who managed to evade the police net were forced to operate underground. Many more fled the country and joined MK or Poqo in exile. This turn of events caused the National Party government to believe that it had normalised the political situation, a sense enhanced by the economic boom of the 1960s, when foreign investment flooded into the country and the annual rate of economic growth rose to 9.3 per cent.1 Job opportunities opened up, and as many black people found employment their focus shifted from politics to making a living.
The black residents of Kroonstad also benefitted from this economic boom. At the close of the 1960s, a significant number were employed. By then, Setiloane writes: ‘Kroonstad town had grown tremendously. There were more shops, more garages, more restaurants, more hotels and more suburbs. Factories which were non-existent in the 1930s and 1940s had now sprung up. Job opportunities were numerous. People could also find employment in the police force, the prison department and at the municipal offices.’2
In spite of the barrage of suppressive laws passed by the government during this period to intimidate black people, and the economic boom which deflected the political momentum of the late 1950s, a few people, operating clandestinely, attempted to resuscitate opposition politics and to conscientise the younger generation. These attempts, however, were disrupted. First, many of the adult activists who were part of the secret meetings fled into exile. Second, some of the young people left Kroonstad to further their studies at tertiary institutions.
In the 1960s the government created ethnically divided university colleges to take the edge off black opposition politics, but this had unintended consequences. Instead of producing docile and apolitical university graduates who would go on to develop their different homelands, the atmosphere at these universities helped to develop the students’ political awareness. In the early 1970s these students played a pivotal role in politicising secondary and high school students who, in 1976, took to the streets to challenge the government. In Kroonstad, students and graduates from the University of the North (also known as Turfloop), using the
