The UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History

This research paper focuses on the role of women in the fight against South African apartheid in the 20th century. The paper highlights the role of the Federation of South African Women (FSAW), a group that worked to peacefully resist apartheid, and the women who played prominent roles within that federation. Starting with early resistance to racist laws in the 1910s we will follow the growth and contributions of the women's movement to the anti-apartheid efforts taking place in South Africa until the early 1960s when the freedom movement was forced to shift underground. Special attention is given to the Anti-Pass March held in 1956, a gathering of an estimated 20,000 women in protest of the racist restrictions being placed on the non-white citizens of South Africa. A detailed account of the event has been created through the synthesis of primary sources such as autobiographies and personal letters with secondary sources created by those outside of the historical event. The paper also examines the different consequences that the women who helped to orchestrate the march had to endure and explores the efforts to memorialize the event in the current period.