(As told to Barbie Schreiner, Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare. 1986)
' Are you still a member of the African National Congress?'
'Yes.'
'But the organisation is banned.'
'But my spirit is not banned. I still say that I want freedom in my lifetime.'
In her own words, Ma Frances Baard tells of her early years, through her growing participation in trade unions, the ANC, the Federation of South African Women and other organisations. Active in the struggle for freedom in South Africa since the 1940s, her fascinating narrative ranges from failures and successes in organising and activating workers in the factories, to the mass actions in the 1950s, which showed the government the strength and determination of South African women. Her involvement brought about increasing harassment, culminating in a jail sentence and banishment. This is not only the story of one person. Spanning nearly 80 years, it is also a remarkable record of important events in our struggle for freedom.
Forming the Federation
'The battle for democracy and liberation can only be won when women, mothers of the nation - half of the whole population - can take their rightful place as free and equal partners with men."
From the invitation to the 1954 Women's Conference
From the time I joined the ANC we spent a long time organising the women. When I joined there were only a few women there, but after we began to organise - shjoo - soon many women were organised.
In the early fifties, the government decided to make black women carry passes as well. Up to then the women didn't have to carry passes, only the men, but now they wanted to make us carry passes as well. Well lots of things happened then because the women didn't want these passes.
A pass is this little book you must get when you are 16 and it says where you can work, and where you can be, and if you have got work. You can't get a job without this book. And you can only get a job where they stamp your pass to say 'Johannesburg' or 'Pretoria' and so on. You must carry it with you all the time because the police can ask you, 'Where is your pass?' any time, and then you must show them. If you haven't got your pass, they put you in jail for some days or else you must pay some money to get out.
In 1953 Ray Alexander came to Port Elizabeth, and while she was there she wanted to have a meeting with the women. Florence and I helped to organise the meeting quickly for that same night. We told many women and each told another one that there would be a meeting. There were about 40 or 50 women at the meeting. We were talking about the position of women, and what we could do, and we were talking about passes, food prices, rent and so on. At that time they wanted to start influx control for women in Port Elizabeth so the women were very worried what would happen to them. We were very worried about all these things that were happening against women. At that meeting a woman suggested that we should have a conference to set up a national organisation of women. We knew that we would be much stronger if we could all work together. We all though that it was a very good idea and we decided that Ray must start to organise such a thing.
So she organised the conference, and Hilda Watts in Johannesburg helped a log, and some other women too. In the beginning of 1954 se all got invitations to go to a conference of women in Johannesburg. I was one of the women that signed that invitation.
In April many women from all over South Africa came together in Johannesburg to talk to each other. The women from the ANC, the Congress of Democrats, the Indian Congress and the Coloured People's Congress; and the women from the trade unions all came to Johannesburg, from Port Elizabeth and East London. We went by car. Mrs. Njongwe (she was the wife of one of our leaders) drove the car all the way from East London. It was a very long way for a woman to drive in that time.
We were late to arrive at the conference because our car broke down on the way. Hawu! We were so scared we should not get there. When we got to the hall there was somebody speaking, but we were so glad to be there we just walked into the hall to join all the women. There were four or five or six of us, I don't remember now, all in our Eastern Cape dress, long ochre skirts and head-dresses, and that whole conference stopped. We stopped that whole conference and they turned to look at us, such a group, looking so good.
It was a very exciting conference. We felt very strong with all the women coming together. We felt very proud that we were all together. It was very important that the women were following us. When the people are behind you, then you can do a lot of things.
We spoke at that conference about women and their problems and how we can organise to change things. Some people gave speeches, Ida Mtwana and some others, and we all spoke our problems and ideas. I told the women at the conference about the passes in Port Elizabeth, and how the women didn't want them.
I remember Lillian (Ngoyi) stood up and she said that there would have been many more women there but there husbands didn't want them to go. The husbands say the want democracy, but then they wont let their wives go to meetings.
My friend Florence Matomela was there too from Port Elizabeth and she also spoke. It was getting late and there was a lot to do, so the chairwoman said, 'Time is getting short; each speaker is only allowed three minutes.'
When Florence was talking the chairwoman reminded her that she could only talk for three minutes, and Florence - she was a big woman - she stood there and folded her arms, and she said, 'I am a defier', meaning that she had been a volunteer in the Defiance Campaign; 'I am a defier, and I shall speak for as long as I like!'
And she did! And she said that the conference could bring tears to Dr. Malan, because he did not want the women to be united. She said, 'We want to go to war with Malan. We have no guns for our war, but we shall fight till he gives in.'
While we were having our meetings at that conference, and talking about this and this, there were some men looking after the tea and food and everything so we didn't have to waste time with that. I think it was the men from the Indian Youth Congress. They served us with tea and everything while we had our meeting!
At that conference we adopted the Women's Charter, which says all the things that we women believe and our aims. We said that women should be equal with men, and there should be maternity homes and proper hospitals for women and their children. We want proper houses, and we want all the laws that stop one working anywhere and living anywhere taken away. And we said that women must work and organise so we can get all the things we want. There were many things that we wanted.
When everybody had spoken at this conference and we had discussed things, we decided that we must form a national organisation for women and we decided to call it the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW). The Federation was made up of all the organisations that were at the conference: The ANC Women's League, the Congress of Democrats, the South African Indian Congress and the Coloured People's Organisation. You couldn't join the Federation as an individual; you had to be a member of one of those organisations and then you were automatically a member of the Federation.
We elected a committee for the Federation and Ida Mtwana was elected as our first President. She was the president of the Transvaal Women's League. Florence Matomela was one of the vice-presidents and Lilian Ngoyi and some others, and I was elected onto the committee too.
We talked a lot about the pass laws at that conference and everyone was saying that they are a bad thing, and the first thing the Federation must do is to fight these pass laws. We must organise the women to fight them.
The Congress of the People
There were such a lot of things happening at that time, and some very good things too. In 1955 a very great thing happened. We organised the Congress of the People at Kliptown. Ooh! What a wonderful thing was there! All over the country people organised to come to that congress, and all the groups worked together to organise and make it truly national, so that everyone was represented there. Everyone was invited to come. Even SACTU (South African Congress of Trade Unions) sent delegates too, though they weren't a member of the Congress Alliance yet. SACTU only joined the Congress Alliance later. At that time it was only the ANC, the Coloured Congress, the Indian Congress and the Congress of Democrats.
In Port Elizabeth we from the ANC organised too. We went from door to door telling people that we are going to have this conference and that it is for all the people of South Africa. We got people together in small groups, maybe 10 together, and we asked them, 'If you go to this conference, how would you like South Africa to be handled? How would you like things to be here?'
Then the people say what and what, 'I want to do this and this.' And we listen to the wishes of the people and we give them some pieces of paper so they must write what they want, what they think the country should be. And those who couldn't write, they tell us, 'Write such-and-such a thing and this and this and this.'
We collected demands from all the members of our branch in the ANC and then we collected demands from the workers in the trade unions. Some people went to the churches too to collect demands. Someone from the ANC would go to the church meeting and tem them about us wanting to make the Freedom Charter and what it was for, and then collect their demands. And maybe you see some people sitting somewhere in a group, sitting talking maybe, so you go to them and you ask them what they want, how thy think the country should be. Then we have a meeting and we pile all these wishes together. All those wishes were taken to the National Executive Offices and there they were sorted these things out and found what most people want and so forth. They took all the things that everyone wants and they put all these wishes together and made the Freedom Charter. That is how the people made the Freedom Charter.
The Federation organised for the Congress too. We made a list of what the women demanded so that the women should not be forgotten in the Freedom Charter. We had already made the Women's Charter at the Federation Conference and we wanted them to put some of these things in the Freedom Charter too. We wanted proper care and help for pregnant women and mothers; we wanted free education for everyone. We demanded proper housing that we could afford, with proper electricity and proper toilets, because our houses did not have these things. And we wanted food for everyone and better prices for food because we all knew what it is like when your child is crying and you have no money to buy him food. And then too of course, we demanded that the women be equal with the men in everything, and we wanted that all the women in South Africa should be allowed to vote.
Then, in about April, we elected all the delegates that we wanted to snd to the Congress. There were more than a hundred delegates that went from the Eastern Cape. Florence Matomela was one of our delegates I remember, from the ANC Women's League.
The Federation in Johannesburg organised accommodation for most of these delegates, in Soweto and so on. They went around to all the houses in the townships near Kliptown, and they told the people about the Congress and they asked them if they had some space for people to stay. They made a big list of all the houses and how many people must stay where. The people were to bring their own blankets with them to the Congress, and then we find them some space, on the floor, or maybe a mattress if they are lucky, and they can stay their in someone's house.
On the day of the Congress of the People, hawu! It started the day before Freedom Day, on Saturday. There were a lot of people. They came by buses, cars, taxis, anything, just to be brought there. That place was in Kliptown near Johannesburg in a big open space, a flat area. And they made a stage, a big stage, because people had to go up there where there were loudspeakers so that everybody could hear what they were saying. The whole place was packed. And everyone was dressed so brightly you know, the ANC colours everywhere, and the Indian women in saris, and some people in traditional dress, colour everywhere. I was there too as a delegate of the Women's League. There was a lot of excitement and what, I don't know. It was wonderful!
Father Huddleston and Chief Luthuli and Dr Dadoo were given awards that day by the people to honour them. Chief Luthuli was such a nice man. I used to know him quite well, and he was a very nice, quiet man. I stayed at his place in Durban when I was once there. And his wife too - they were nice people.
All those demands that had been collected from the people and had been put into the Freedom Charter, they were read out by the different leaders, read out to the people so we could say whether we accepted them. They were all read out in English, Sotho and Xhosa so that everyone must understand. And them people spoke about those demands, for work for all, houses, security and comfort, about learning and culture, al of those demands in the Freedom Charter, especially the one that says, 'The people shall govern'. We said why we wanted these things to be like this. It went on like that with the people singing and clapping and everyone was very happy.
Then during the second afternoon the police came, as a force man! They came with horses and with motor cars and the whole Congress was surrounded by them. They came in and they sort of rounded us up. They took the names of everybody there, thousands of us, and they confiscated cameras and papers and so on. But we carried on and finished the conference. The people told us that there were a lot of people who were coming to the conference who were stopped on the way in road-blocks, and sent back, or kept in jail for the weekend. Some people didn't make it at all because of the police. But there were a lot of people who came and the conference was a success anyway.
There were something like 3 000 delegates there for the two days of the conference, from all over the country, from every part of South Africa. Everyone was invited to the conference. Even the government was invited to come. But they sent their police instead!
After that Congress the we had to go back to our places and make sure that all the people knew about the Freedom Charter and what it said, so that everyone must know what we went to Johannesburg for and how was the Charter created by the people. We did that through all our organisations; we did it through the trade union too. We spoke to all our trade union members about this thing.
I remember one time when we were in Cape Town doing this work, talking to the people about the Freedom Charter. One of the girls who were with me there was carrying her Freedom Charter with her and there comes the security! They came up to her and wanted to grab her Freedom Charter, but she swallowed it! She ate it! So that the policeman couldn't get a thing out of that; it was already chewed and swallowed.
After the Congress of the People you would see on the trains, on the walls, written everywhere, all the demands of the Freedom Charter. Nobody knew how they do it, but we see it when we get up in the morning. The volunteers painted those things everywhere. It was because they were so happy when they heard that we wanted South Africa to be like this, that we want the people to rule themselves in this way, that we want the people's government, and that we want to share. That is why they went about doing all this graffiti of the Freedom Charter in every town, on the factory walls, everywhere. Every morning the government had to have some people to go about scrubbing these things away! I think they had to hire extra people to go about scrubbing the walls.
Sometimes when the people know that you are working for the government and so forth, they had some stickers too, and you'll be walking and they put a sticker behind you here on your back. And then you'll be going about all day with this sticker and the people go 'Huh! Huh!' Perhaps on the sticker it says ' The people shall govern' or something from the Freedom Charter. When you get home and take off your jacket, then you find this sticker there.
We did a lot of things with the Freedom Charter.
[Contents]