Statecraft & Independence
Peerless
Lilian Ngoyi
1911 – 1980
Led twenty thousand women to the Union Buildings in 1956
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
On 9 August 1956 she led twenty thousand women to the seat of the apartheid government carrying their petitions, and stood in silence outside it for half an hour. South Africa still marks the day.
Lilian Ngoyi was a South African nurse, garment worker and political organiser who became the first woman elected to the national executive of the African National Congress.
On 9 August 1956 she and her fellow organisers led an estimated twenty thousand women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of the white minority government, carrying stacks of petitions against the extension of the pass laws to women. The march is commemorated in South Africa every year as Women's Day. She spent much of the rest of her life under banning orders. She died in 1980.
On 9 August 1956 she and her fellow organisers led an estimated twenty thousand women to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of the white minority government, carrying stacks of petitions against the extension of the pass laws to women. The march is commemorated in South Africa every year as Women's Day. She spent much of the rest of her life under banning orders. She died in 1980.
- South African History Online — The 1956 Women's March in Pretoria
- The Conversation — Lilian Ngoyi: a heroic South African woman whose story hasn't been fully told
- Wikipedia — Women's March (South Africa)
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