Viola Hashe (1926-1977) was a teacher, anti-apartheid activist and trade unionist in South Africa. Hashe was also blind. [1]
Viola Hashe (1926-1977) was a teacher, anti-apartheid activist and trade unionist in South Africa. Hashe was also blind. [1]
Hashe was born in 1926 in the Orange Free State. [2] She started working with the trade unions and joined the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1950s. [2] She became a member of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) in the mid-1950s. [2] In 1956, she worked on the South African Clothing Workers Union (SACWU) where she became the first woman leader of an all-male South African union. [2] Hashe spoke at the SACTU conference in Durban where she discussed passes for women, since women weren't allowed to hold passes. [3]
Hashe became the first woman to be threatened with deportation under the Urban Areas Act in 1956. [2] She had the counsel of Shulamith Muller, and the order to deport her was rescinded "barely seven hours before the order was to take effect." [4] In 1963, Hashe was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 and then "restricted to Roodepoort" until her death in 1977. [2]
Hashe influenced many people who became activists or who were already working as activists. These included Bertha Gxowa, [5] Mabel Balfour, and Mary Moodley. [6] A branch of the African National Congress Youth League is named after Hashe. [7]
The Defiance Campaign against Unjust Laws was presented by the African National Congress (ANC) at a conference held in Bloemfontein, South Africa in December 1951. The Campaign had roots in events leading up the conference. The demonstrations, taking place in 1952, were the first "large-scale, multi-racial political mobilization against apartheid laws under a common leadership."
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The South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) was a national trade union federation in South Africa.
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Bertha Gxowa, OLS, was an anti-apartheid and women's rights activist and trade unionist in South Africa.
Mabel Balfour was a South African trade unionist and an anti-apartheid activist. Balfour was first involved with the unions representing food and canning workers. After many leaders in the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) were arrested in the 1956 Treason Trials, she became part of the Management Committee in 1957. Balfour was considered good at keeping "the spirits of workers high during very difficult times."
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Rita Alice Ndzanga was a South African anti-apartheid activist and trade unionist.
Shulamith Muller was a South African lawyer, communist, and anti-apartheid activist. Muller was one of the attorneys for the 1956 Treason Trial.
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Kesval Moonsamy was a South African trade unionist, politician and anti-apartheid activist. He was one of the 156 accused in the 1956 Treason Trial. He went into exile in 1965 and returned to South Africa in 1991. Moonsamy was elected treasurer of the South African Communist Party in 1997 and served as an African National Congress Member of Parliament from 1999 until 2009.