Lilian Ngoyi

Lilian Masediba Ngoyi was born in 1911 in Pretoria, one of six children. Little is known of her parents or early childhood. After school she enrolled in a nurse's training course but later worked for eleven years as a machinist in a clothing factory. In 1936 she married John Ngoyi, and she had three children.

Ngoyi was drawn to the ethos and spirit of the African National Congress and joined it during the 1950 Defiance Campaign, in which she was arrested for using facilities reserved for white people. The ANC quickly recognised her gift for public speaking and her talent for uniting people in a common cause.

In 1953 she was elected president of the ANC Women's League, a post she held until 1963, and in 1956 she became president of the Federation of South African Women, linking the struggles of women with the wider campaigns of the liberation movement. In December 1956 she became the first woman ever elected to the ANC's national executive committee.

On 9 August 1956 Ngoyi was among the leaders of a march of some 20,000 women from across the country to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against laws requiring women to carry pass books. Witnesses spoke of her courage as she knocked on the prime minister's door to hand over thousands of petitions. She was also among those charged in the long Treason Trial.

For her activism Ngoyi was banned and held under government restrictions for almost twenty years. She died on 11 March 1980 in Orlando Township, Johannesburg. The anniversary of the 1956 march, 9 August, is now celebrated in South Africa as National Women's Day, a lasting tribute to the women who led it.