Tuesday, 26 June 1860
On 26 June 1860, the first steam train in South Africa made its first official journey between Durban and the Point.
The distance of the railway line was only 3, 2 km, and the journey is said to have taken only five minutes. However, this short journey was the beginning of a widespread South African railway service.
The next railway developed that followed was between Cape Town and Eerste River, which was opened on 13 February 1862.
The discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1866 led to increased railway construction throughout the country, notably the Cape main line between De Aar and Kimberley.
The Durban Station that was built to accommodate travellers on the Durban-Point line still stands today, the main building of which has been declared a national monument.
Monday, 26 June 1950
The Suppression of Communism Act, No. 44 of 1950, according to which the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) was declared an illegal organisation, was approved on 26 June in parliament and came into force on 17 July 1950. Dates concerning the approval vary slightly in different sources.
The Suppression of Communism Act, banned the South African Communist Party, and gave the government the power to ban publications that promoted the objectives of communism, and the power to name people who could be barred from holding office, practicing as lawyers or attending meetings.
The Act, later extended through the Internal Security Act, sanctioned the banning/punishment of any group or individual intending to bring about ‘any political, industrial, social or economic change in the Union by the promotion of disturbances or disorder, by unlawful acts or omissions or by the threat of such acts and omissions’. This definition of communism was so broad and crude that its liberal opponents suspected it was seeking also to trap liberals in its net.
The Act was progressively tightened up in 1951, 1954, and yearly from 1962 to 1968.
Between 1948 and 1991, the apartheid government banned more than 1,600 men and women. Banned persons endured severe restrictions on their movement, political activities, and associations intended to silence their opposition to the government’s apartheid policies and stop their political activity.
In addition, the Act facilitated the governments take down of liberation organizations such as the African National Congress (ANC). The Act forced these groups to go underground with their activism. Ironically, because of this act, groups such as Umkhonto we Sizwe, did seek support from Communist parties for financial aid. Liberation struggle leaders like Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki all received life sentences in prison partly because of this Act (Rivonia Trial).
Friday, 26 June 1959
The potato boycott began in protest against slave-like labour conditions for Black workers on potato farms. In areas like Bethal in Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga), recruited workers were expected to work long hours on farms in extreme weather conditions, receiving subsistence rations and slave wages. In articles in New Age the brutality of this system was exposed in 1947, nationalising the issue. Drum magazine took up the story in 1952, after coming in possession of a dossier of trials of cases of beatings in the late 1940s, including one case in which a worker had been beaten to death in 1944. In support of these workers, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) launched a country wide potato boycott. The boycott, one of the most successful undertaken by the ANC to that date, was called off in September 1959. Its success gave confidence to engage in further boycotts.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at roodepoortrecord@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites Randfontein Herald, Krugersdorp News and Get It Joburg West Magazine
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
