About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

1950

At Witzieshoek peasants rebel against enforced cattle culling and the starvation caused by land shortage. Police kill protesters.

May Day call by ANC for general stay-at-home demanding Votes for All and end to discrimination. Strike successful in Johannesburg but in evening police come shooting. 18 dead, 30 wounded.

June 26 declared a national day of mourning by the ANC for those killed on May Day. Observed annually as Freedom Day.

Unlawful Organisations Bill to ban CP and Suppression of Communism Act passed to allow Minister of Justice powers to restrict persons, organisations, newspapers etc. CP dissolved before Act is passed.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.