Meet a woman who fought for your rights

MBOMBELA – One of the stalwarts among the 20 000 women who took to the streets of Pretoria in 1956 to stage a peaceful march to the Union Buildings against the legislation that required black South Africans to carry a pass, still lives in the province.

The family of 85-year-old Gogo Shayeni Ellina Mabuza are excited to say she was part of the protest led by Mss Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn.

“Maybe because of illiteracy and lack of information, her name was never mentioned anywhere in the history of this country, however, we are proud of her role,” said Mabuza’s son-in-law, former ANC councillor, Mr Isaac Tlou.

“She is still very alert and was quick to say she did not want to be arrested when we asked her about the day,” he said.

Mabuza owned a house in Mamelodi, Section A in Pretoria. She was married to the late Elias Mabuza with whom she left Pretoria in 1969 to settle in Boschfontein under the Mhlaba Tribal Authority in the Nkomazi Local Municipality.

Some of their children still live in her house in Mamelodi.

Although her memory is fading because of age, she still remembers the trauma the women of 1956 went through on that day.

She says she had experienced the wrath of the Group Areas Act. She said they struggled from the beginning of 1940 until they finally qualified to get a four-room house in the late 1940s. She also remembers the Rivonia Trial.

A slogan was composed in honour of this momentous occasion: “Wathint’ Abafazi Wathint’ imbokodo!” (You strike a woman, you strike a rock).