PIONEER
Lillian Ngoyi
Politician | Human rights activist | ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) President
Born: 25 September 1911 Died: 13 March 1980
“My womb is shaken when they speak of Bantu Education.”
Who is
Lillian Ngoyi?
Politician and anti-apartheid activist, a defendant in the Treason Trial and leader of the anti-pass demonstrations.
Professions
and Roles
Former President of the ANCWL and the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW).
Best Known For
Leadership role in the 9 August 1956 march to the Union Buildings, and being the first woman ever elected to the African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC).
Life highlights
- Ngoyi joined the Garment Workers Union and became one of its leading figures. She joined the ANC during the 1950 Defiance Campaign, and was arrested for using facilities in a post office reserved for white people.
- Ngoyi was elected as President of the ANC Women’s League in 1951. She attended the Women’s International Democratic Federation conference and was invited to tour eastern bloc countries – including Russia and China – with a group of socialist delegates in 1955.
- Ngoyi was appointed as one of the FEDSAW national vice-Presidents and elected as its President in 1956. She became a member of the Transvaal ANC executive from 1955 and in 1956 became the first woman ever elected to the ANC NEC.
- Ngoyi led the women’s anti-pass march to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956.
- In 1956 Ngoyi was arrested for high treason along with 156 other leading figures, and stood trial until 1961 in the Treason Trial.
- Ngoyi was imprisoned for five months under the 1960 state of emergency and spent most of this time in solitary confinement.
- She was first issued banning orders in October 1962 and jailed under the 90-day detention act in the mid-1960s, spending 71 days in solitary confinement.
- Ngoyi’s second banning order was renewed in 1975.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
“My womb is shaken when they speak of Bantu Education.”
– Lillian Ngoyi, Bantu World Newspaper, 1955
“Let us be brave: we have heard of men shaking in their trousers, but who ever heard of a woman shaking in her skirt?”
– Lillian Ngoyi, inaugural conference of the Federation of South African Women, 1954
IN THE WORDS OF OTHERS
“I joined the ANC in 1948 because of Lillian Ngoyi … The way she used to preach to me about the future of the child you are going to bring into this world.”
– Albertina Sisulu, anti-apartheid activist
Ngoyi was the one who knocked on Prime Minister J G Strijdom’s door to hand over the petitions during the anti-pass march on 9 August 1956. She is often referred to as the “mother of the black resistance” in South Africa.
References
