Forgotten Bodies or Silenced Voices? Recasting Women’s Voices at the Bantu Square Massacre of East London, 1952

Abstract

Narratives of political and community struggles often privilege the role of men, painting them as the faces of the struggle. Yet, women have been (and continue to be) active participants who have fought against systems of oppression through active mobilisation and resistance. This article focuses on events on 9 November 1952 at Bantu Square in Duncan Village, East London, when police broke up a meeting and shot and killed hundreds of people, while angry mobs killed two white people in retaliation. ‘Local historians’ point to the crucial role of women in mobilising support for the meeting that day. Women not only attended in their hundreds and died in untold numbers, but have left a lasting impression on the generations that have followed, inspiring activism and the retelling of what they call the Bantu Square massacre. The article draws on life histories, interviews, secondary material (including a film and memoir) and theories about the silencing of black women in the apartheid archive (Bridger and Hazan) and marginalised women generally (Crenshaw), and about the fragmented narratives that are produced when the silenced eventually speak (Markham).

Keywords:

• women
• resistance
• narratives
• silencing
• ‘local historians’
• East London

Acknowledgements

Research for this article was conducted while the author was a doctoral candidate and was funded by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).

Notes

1 H. Ndlovu, ‘Womxn’s Bodies Reclaiming the Picket Line: The “Nude” Protest During #FeesMustFall’, Agenda, 31, 3–4 (2017), pp. 68–77.

2 H. Ndlovu, ‘Bodies That (Do Not) Matter? Black Sunday and Narratives of the Death of Sister Aidan Quinlan in Duncan Village Protest, 1952’, Agenda, 34, 1 (2020), pp. 48–54; H. Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities and an Elusive State: A Study of State/Society Relations in Duncan Village’ (PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020); H. Ndlovu, ‘An Agenda With No Gender: 2021 Local Government Elections and Patriarchal Domination in South African Politics’, Politikon, 49, 4 (2022), pp. 396–410.

3 B. Delany, A Martyr of Charity: Sister Mary Aidan Quinlan O.P. (Port Elizabeth, Diocese of Port Elizabeth, 1953); A. Mager and G. Minkley. ‘Reaping the Whirlwind: The East London Riots of 1952’ (unpublished paper presented at a history workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, 1990); L. Buur, ‘The Horror of the Mob: The Violence of Imagination in South Africa’, Critique of Anthropology, 29, 1 (2009), pp. 27–46.

4 See M. Breier, ‘Introduction’, in this part-special issue for a discussion of the naming of the day.

5 E. Bridger and E. Hazan, ‘Surfeit and Silence: Sexual Violence in the Apartheid Archive’, African Studies, 81, 3–4 (2023), p. 287.

6 Ibid., p. 2.

7 M.R. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, Beacon Press, 2015) cited in Bridger and Hazan, ‘Surfeit and Silence’, p. 295.

8 See M. Breier, Bloody Sunday: The Nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s Secret Massacre (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2021) for details of the death toll and court proceedings.

9 A police report cited by Breier, Bloody Sunday, p. 116, states that one-third of the people attending the meeting were women. As this report puts the total crowd at 700 to 800 people, then at least 200 were women.

10 Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

11 Ndlovu, ‘Bodies That (Do Not) Matter?’; Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’; H. Ndlovu, ‘Gendering Protests: Mapping Women’s Participation in Community Protests in Duncan Village, Eastern Cape’, in H. Brooks, R. Chikane and S. Mottiar (eds), Protest in South Africa: Rejection, Reassertion, Reclamation (Johannesburg, Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection [MISTRA], 2023), pp. 111–33.

12 M. Samuelson, ‘The Disfigured Body of the Female Guerrilla: (De)Militarization, Sexual Violence, and Redomestication in Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 32, 4 (2007), p. 833.

13 Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

14 N. Yuval-Davis, ‘Intersectionality and Feminist Politics’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13, 3 (2006), pp. 193–209.

15 K. Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, 43, 6 (1991), pp. 1241–99.

16 P. Kiguwa, ‘Feminist Approaches: An Exploration of Women’s Gendered Experiences’, in S. Laher, A. Fynn and S. Kramer (eds) Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Case Studies from South Africa (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2019), p. 227.

17 Samuelson, ‘The Disfigured Body’.

18 A.N. Markham, ‘“Go Ugly Early”: Fragmented Narrative and Bricolage as Interpretive Method’, Qualitative Inquiry, 11, 6 (2005), pp. 813–39.

19 Samuelson, ‘The Disfigured Body’, p. 833.

20 G.A. Musila, A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder (New York, Boydell & Brewer, 2015) p. 5.

21 Ibid.

22 Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

23 Breier, Bloody Sunday, pp. 152–75.

24 J. Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (Brooklyn, Verso, 2009), p. xiii.

25 Ndlovu, ‘Bodies That (Do Not) Matter?’; Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

26 M. Breier, ‘The Death That Dare(d) Not Speak its Name: The Killing of Sister Aidan Quinlan in the East London Riots of 1952’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 6 (2015), pp. 1151–65; L. Bank and B. Carton, ‘Forgetting Apartheid: History, Culture and the Body of a Nun’, Africa, 86, 3 (2016), pp. 472–503.

27 United States Institute of Peace, Truth Commission: South Africa (1995), available at https://www.usip.org/publications/1995/12/truth-commission-south-africa, retrieved 22 March 2024.

28 SABC News, Duncan Village (2024), available at http://sabctrc.saha.org.za/glossary/duncan_village.htm, retrieved 22 March 2024.

29 M.K. Qebeyi, Dark Cloud (East London, M.K. Productions, 2011); Bank and Carton, ‘Forgetting Apartheid’; Breier, Bloody Sunday.

30 Butler, Frames of War, p. 9.

31 Delany, A Martyr of Charity.

32 Ibid.; Mager and Minkley, ‘Reaping the Whirlwind’. Breier, in Bloody Sunday, found that an eighth victim was added to the list in 1953. He had died in hospital.

33 W. Beinart, ‘Women in Rural Politics in Herschel in the 1920s and 1930s’, in B. Bozzoli (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987), pp. 324–57.

34 T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (London, Longman, 1987); Breier, ‘The Death That Dare(d) Not Speak its Name’; Breier, Bloody Sunday; Bank and Carton, ‘Forgetting Apartheid’.

35 Mager and Minkley, ‘Reaping the Whirlwind’.

36 Breier, ‘The Death That Dare(d) Not Speak its Name’; Breier, Bloody Sunday; Bank and Carton, ‘Forgetting Apartheid’.

37 Breier, Bloody Sunday, pp. 115–16, reports conflicting figures from police officers. One told the media that 1,500 people attended, while another stated in court that 700 to 800 people attended the meeting and one-third were women.

38 Breier, Bloody Sunday, p. 146.

39 C. Thomas, Tangling the Lion’s Tale: Donald Card, from Apartheid Era Cop to Crusader for Justice (East London, Donald Card, 2007); Breier, Bloody Sunday; Bank and Carton, ‘Forgetting Apartheid’.

40 Delany, A Martyr of Charity; J.L. McFall, Trust Betrayed: The Murder of Sister Mary Aidan (Cape Town, Nasionale Boekhandel, 1963); Mager and Minkley, ‘Reaping the Whirlwind’; L.J. Bank and A. Bank, ‘Untangling the Lion’s Tale: Violent Masculinity and the Ethics of Biography in the “Curious” Case of the Apartheid-Era Policeman Donald Card’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 39, 1 (2013), pp. 7–30; Breier, Bloody Sunday, pp. 120–2, 155–91.

41 Delany, A Martyr of Charity.

42 See L.J. Bank, Home Spaces, Street Styles: Contesting Power and Identity in a South African City (London, Pluto Press, 2011) for a detailed description of the events.

43 B. Hollands, ‘“True” Story of Nun’s Murder Captured’, Weekend Post, Port Elizabeth, 10 September 2011, p. 7.

44 Z. Mukhuthu, ‘Film Reviews EL’s Black Sunday’, Daily Dispatch, East London, 22 October 2011, p. 3.

45 See Hollands, ‘True Story’; Mukhuthu, ‘Film Reviews’; L. Sifile, ‘New Doccie Asks How Many Died on DV’s Black Sunday’, Daily Dispatch, East London, 11 November 2011, p. 2. Breier (‘Proving a Secret Massacre’, in this part-special issue) says the term ‘Black Sunday’ was first used by Daily Dispatch journalist J.L. McFall in a 1963 biography of Sister Aidan.

46 Breier, Bloody Sunday, p. 203.

47 Popcorn Fridays, Black Sunday: Documentary Film (6 May 2021), available at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1174196009764945, retrieved 22 March 2024.

48 Breier, Bloody Sunday, provides an account of the court proceedings following 9 November 1952, pp. 162–6.

49 See Breier, ‘Proving a Secret Massacre’, in this part-special issue for a discussion of the burials and graves.

50 M. Ngcaba, May I Have This Dance: The Story of My Life (Muizenberg, Cover2Cover Books, 2015), pp. 43–4.

51 Ibid., p. 45.

52 Interview, Duncan Village, 15 April 2017.

53 Adapted from the life history interview of Mam’ uThozama, 4 May 2017.

54 Adapted from the life history interview of Mam’ uYoliswa, 13 August 2014; 30 September 2017.

55 Adapted from the life history interview of Mandisa, 10 March 2017.

56 Interview with Z. Blauw, East London Museum, 2017; Ndlovu, ‘Bodies That (Do Not) Matter’.

57 S. Barry, Inkululeko (Johannesburg, 2024).

58 Interview with P. Mkonqo, Duncan Village, 2022

59 Interview with P. Mkonqo, Duncan Village, 2014.

60 Interview with P. Mkonqo, Duncan Village, 2014; Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

61 H. Ndlovu, ‘The Journey Through Wits #FeesMustFall 2015/16’, in C. Chinguno, M. Kgoroba, S. Mashibini, B.N. Masilela, B. Maubane, N. Moyo, A. Mthombeni and H. Ndlovu (eds), Rioting and Writing: Diaries of Wits Fallists (Johannesburg, Society, Work and Politics Institute, 2017), pp. 30–8.

62 Interview, Duncan Village, 2016.

63 L. Ngcobozi, Mothers of the Nation: Manyano Women in South Africa (Cape Town, Tafelberg, 2020), p. 20.

64 N. Gasa (ed.), Women in South African History: They Remove Boulders and Cross Rivers (Johannesburg, HSRC Press, 2007).

65 B. Haddad, ‘The Manyano Movement in South Africa: Site of Struggle, Survival, and Resistance’, Agenda, 18, 61 (2004), pp. 4–13.

66 See Breier, ‘Introduction’, in this part-special issue for more details.

67 Interview with P. Mkonqo, Duncan Village, 2022.

68 Interview with former councillor 1, 10 November 2014; Ndlovu, ‘Fractured Communities’.

69 N. Dawes, Review: May I Have This Dance, African Books Collective, available at https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/may-i-have-this-dance, retrieved 23 November 2023.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hlengiwe Ndlovu

Hlengiwe Ndlovu

Senior Lecturer, Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa. Email: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7892-4228