Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication | |
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General information | |
Status | Completed |
Type | Monument |
Location | Kliptown, Soweto |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | studioMAS |
Walter Sisulu Square, formally known as the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication, is located in the heart of Kliptown in Soweto, South Africa. [1]
This location was the site where, on 26 June 1955, the Congress of the People, met to draw up the Freedom Charter, an alternative vision to the repressive policies of the apartheid state. The document emphasised a non-racial society, liberty and individual rights. The Freedom Charter remains the cornerstone of African National Congress policy and is seen by many as the foundation of South Africa's 1996 constitution.
The square has now been declared as a national heritage site. In June 2005, former President Thabo Mbeki lit a flame of freedom in Kliptown to mark the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Charter. [2] It is named after Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu, a political activist during the apartheid era who was a member of African National Congress and served as Secretary-General and Deputy President of the organisation. He was released from prison in 1989.
The square's features include an open-air museum that explains how the Freedom Charter was written as a collaborative effort by thousands of South Africans of all races. [3] The conical brick tower at the centre of the square is a monument to the document itself and contains the full principles of the Charter engraved in bronze.
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing National Party under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950. The Communist Party was reconstituted underground and re-launched as the SACP in 1953, participating in the struggle to end the apartheid system. It is a member of the ruling Tripartite Alliance alongside the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and through this it influences the South African government. The party's Central Committee is the party's highest decision-making structure.
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). Between terms as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and ANC Deputy President (1991–1994), he was Accused No.2 in the Rivonia Trial and was incarcerated on Robben Island where he served more than 25 years' imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid revolutionary activism. He had a close partnership with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, with whom he played a key role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the establishment of the ANC Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was also on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.
Nontsikelelo Albertina Sisulu OMSG was a South African anti-apartheid activist, and the wife of fellow activist Walter Sisulu (1912–2003). She was affectionately known as "Ma Sisulu" throughout her lifetime by the South African public. In 2004 she was voted 57th in the SABC3's Great South Africans. She died on 2 June 2011 in her home in Linden, Johannesburg, South Africa, aged 92.
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in apartheid-era South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964, after a group of anti-apartheid activists were arrested on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. The farm had been the secret location for meetings of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the newly-formed armed wing of the African National Congress. The trial took place in Pretoria at the Palace of Justice and the Old Synagogue and led to the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni. Many were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life.
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo was a South African anti-apartheid politician and activist who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
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."
The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress. It is characterised by its opening demand, "The People Shall Govern!"
The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956.
Kliptown is a suburb of the formerly black township of Soweto in Gauteng, South Africa, located about 17 km south-west of Johannesburg. Kliptown is the oldest residential district of Soweto, and was first laid out in 1891 on land which formed part of Klipspruit farm. The farm was named after the klipspruit that runs nearby. From 1903 the area was home to informal settlements, and the area now contains a mixture of purpose-built housing and many shacks and other informal homes which form the Chris Hani and Dlamini settlements.
The Congress of the People was a gathering organised by the National Action Council, a multi-racial organisation which later became known as the Congress Alliance, and held in Kliptown on 26 June 1955 to lay out the vision of the South African people. The Freedom Charter was drawn up at the gathering, which was statement of core principles of the Alliance and a symbol of internal resistance against apartheid.
Manonmoney Ama Naidoo OLS or Ama Naidoo was a South African anti-apartheid activist.
The South African Indian Congress (SAIC) was an umbrella body founded in 1921 to coordinate between political organisations representing Indians in the various provinces of South Africa. Its members were the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC), and, initially, the Cape British Indian Council. It advocated non-violent resistance to discriminatory laws and in its formative years was strongly influenced by the NIC's founder, Mahatma Gandhi.
Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors of South African society and took forms ranging from social movements and passive resistance to guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party (NP) government, coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were instrumental in leading to negotiations to end apartheid, which began formally in 1990 and ended with South Africa's first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994.
Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu is a South African politician. She was member of parliament from 1994 until 2023, and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress as of 2023. She previously served as Minister of Housing, as Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister of Human Settlements from, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation and Minister of Tourism.
The African National Congress (ANC) has been the governing party of the Republic of South Africa since 1994. The ANC was founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein and is the oldest liberation movement in Africa.
Liliesleaf Farm, also spelt Lilliesleaf and also known simply as Liliesleaf, is a location in northern Johannesburg, South Africa, which is most noted for its use as a safe house for African National Congress (ANC) activists during the apartheid years in the 1960s. In 1963, the South African police raided the farm, arresting more than a dozen ANC leaders and activists, who were then tried and prosecuted during the Rivonia Trial.
The Congress Alliance was an anti-apartheid political coalition formed in South Africa in the 1950s. Led by the African National Congress, the CA was multi-racial in makeup and committed to the principle of majority rule.
The Site of the Red Square was a favourite political meeting place for protest movements around the 1940s and 50s. The Site is now covered by the South Mall and Car Park 4 of the Oriental Plaza. The defiance campaign was launched here in 1952, this was the first mass anti-apartheid campaign led by Nelson Mandela as volunteer-in chief of the African National Congress.Completed in 1976, the Plaza was built to accommodate Indian traders evicted by the apartheid government from the main trading street, 14th Street as well as other streets including the eastern and western boundary street, Delarey and Krause streets of Pageview, Fietas.
Arthur Elias Letele was a politician and physician in South Africa and Basutoland.