Alexandra Bus Boycott

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The Alexandra Bus Boycott (also Azikwelwa ( isiXhosa and isiZulu ); German: Busboykott von Alexandra or We will not drive ) was an action carried out in 1957 by black residents of Alexandra in South Africa . He is considered one of the few successful resistance actions against the apartheid regime .

history

Alexandra was a residential area for blacks in 1957, about eleven kilometers from the center of Johannesburg . To get to the center or their workplaces beyond the center, they usually had to use the Public Utility Transport Corporation (PUTCO) buses , which cost four pence each way. There had already been successful bus boycotts in Alexandra in 1940 and 1943. The main business of PUTCO was in passenger transport between township settlements and the neighboring towns in the Transvaal .

PUTCO increased the fare from four to five pence. On January 7, 1957, several local groups met and formed the Alexandra People's Transport Action Committee (APTAC). These included the Freedom Charterists and the Women's League , both of which were affiliated with the African National Congress . Sub-organizations of the All-African Convention and Non-European Unity Movement also belonged to the alliance. Each group sent three representatives to the committee. Thomas Nkobi was one of the leading activists . APTAC decided to boycott buses, instead the residents walked or - occasionally - were taken away by sympathetic white drivers. At the height of the boycott, 70,000 Alexandra residents took part. Residents of other districts in Johannesburg such as Sophiatown and township residents in Pretoria , such as Lady Selborne , joined the boycott. As it progressed, more radical groups gained the upper hand. Dan Mokonyane rose from the Movement For a Democracy of Content to Secretary and thus head of APTAC. The Movement For a Democracy of Content was originally founded by the German émigré Josef Weber , who also published the magazine Dinge Der Zeit in London.

On April 1, the Chamber of Commerce agreed to subsidize PUTCO so that the fare could be reduced to four pence. The boycott lasted until June when this regulation was implemented.

reception

The South African social scientist Ruth First dealt extensively with the boycott. She noted that with the successful boycott, the black South Africans had achieved the best strategic location since the Defiance Campaign in 1952.

literature

  • Pamela E. Brooks: Boycotts, buses, and passes. Black women's resistance in the US South and South Africa. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 2008, ISBN 978-155849678-1 .
  • Dan Mokonyane: Lessons of Azikwelwa: the bus boycott in South Africa. Nakong Ya Rena, London 1979, ISBN 0-614-09359-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Description from Non-violent Database , accessed on April 25, 2015
  2. ↑ Baruch Hirson: Year of fire, year of ash. the Soweto revolt, roots of a revolution? Zed Press, London 1979, ISBN 0905762290 , p. 127
  3. ↑ a b Assessment of the boycott by the Non European Unity Movement at sahistory.org.za, accessed on April 25, 2015
  4. ↑ Dan Mokonyane: obituary. The Guardian, November 28, 2010, accessed April 25, 2015
  5. ^ Ruth First in Africa South , July-Sept 1957.