"You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock": The 1956 Women's March

On 9 August 1956, the grounds of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of South Africa's government, filled with women. Many wore traditional dress; others wore the green, black and gold of the African National Congress; some carried babies on their backs. Estimates put their number at around 20,000 — women of every background, from cities and rural areas across the country. They had come to deliver a message to the prime minister: they would not carry passes. Tomorrow, South Africa marks that day as National Women's Day.

Passes for women

Under apartheid, Black South African men had long been required to carry passes — documents that controlled where they could live, work and travel. Being caught without one could mean arrest. In the 1950s, the government announced that Black women would also be forced to carry passes.

For women, this was a serious threat. Passes would restrict their movements, make it harder to find work or visit family, and expose them to arrest and harassment. Women had resisted passes before — notably in 1913 in the Free State — and they were determined to resist again.

Organising the march

The march was organised by the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW), a multiracial organisation founded in 1954, together with the ANC Women's League. Its leaders included:

• Lilian Ngoyi, a trade unionist and powerful speaker, the first woman elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee.
• Helen Joseph, a white activist and social worker.
• Rahima Moosa, an Indian South African trade unionist.
• Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, a young Coloured trade unionist.

Organisers collected tens of thousands of signed petitions from women around the country. Women travelled to Pretoria by train, bus and car, often facing obstacles from the authorities.

At the Union Buildings

The leaders went to the office of the prime minister, J.G. Strijdom, to deliver the petitions. He was not there. They left the petitions at his door.

Then, back on the grounds, the women did something remarkable: they stood in complete silence for 30 minutes, thousands of them, their hands raised in the ANC salute. After the silence, they broke into song. One song became an anthem:

"Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo!" — "You strike a woman, you strike a rock!"

The phrase became a symbol of women's strength and resistance in South Africa.

What happened next

The march did not immediately stop the pass laws; the government went ahead, and over the following years women were forced to carry passes. Resistance continued. Many of the march's leaders were later arrested, put on trial or banned. But the march showed the power of women's organisation and became one of the most celebrated moments of the anti-apartheid struggle. The pass laws were finally abolished in 1986. Women's struggles, along with those of young people, as in the Soweto uprising of 1976, helped bring apartheid to an end.

National Women's Day

After the end of apartheid, 9 August was declared National Women's Day, a public holiday, and August is celebrated as Women's Month. The day honours the women of 1956 and focuses on issues affecting women today, including gender-based violence, economic inequality and representation.

In 2000, a monument to the march was unveiled at the Union Buildings, and the leaders of the march are honoured in public art and street names.

Why it matters

The 1956 Women's March showed that women were at the heart of South Africa's freedom struggle — not as supporters, but as leaders and organisers. Twenty thousand women standing in silence outside the seat of power remains one of the most powerful images of peaceful protest in history. And their song still rings out: strike a woman, and you strike a rock.

Further reading

• South African History Online — The 1956 Women's March
• South African Government — National Women's Day
• Helen Joseph, Side by Side: The Autobiography of Helen Joseph (Zed Books, 1986)