South Africa: Women in Black

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One by one, the angry Deputies of South Africa's dwindling opposition parties rose in Cape Town's Parliament to blast the government's new "death for sabotage" bill, which would give the regime sweeping authoritarian powers

(TIME, May 25). Cried the United Party's J. Hamilton Russell: "This is one of the most evil, most cynical measures that have ever come before this honorable House." But the most eloquent attack on the bill was silent. It came from the rows of solemn women wearing black mourning sashes who last week kept a day and night vigil of protest outside Johannesburg's city hall and Cape Town's Parliament buildings.

As they had protested each major Nationalist infringement on freedom in the past seven years, the Black Sash members—largely women of English stock whose husbands oppose the government—once again vowed to stand stern symbolic watch until Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd's government forced the sabotage bill through to the inevitable successful vote. In the autumn chill, Black Sash Chairman Jean Sinclair, a 54-year-old Johannesburg housewife, and her handful of matronly recruits were swathed in overcoats as they lit their symbolic torch of freedom and posted placards reading "Reject the Sabotage Bill." Promptly, young pro-Nationalist hooligans gathered to hurl eggs, water bombs, stones. Once a crowd of 400 rushed the Black Sash ranks.

The police broke up the hecklers now and then, but made no arrests.

After five days of violence, Mrs. Sinclair bowed to a plea from the Johannesburg city council that at least the night vigils be stopped. That evening, inside the city hall, Composer Igor Stravinsky was conducting the South African Broadcasting Corp.'s symphony orchestra in the first of five concerts for whites only (a sixth was reserved for blacks). Stravinsky had asked that seating be integrated, but the broadcasting authorities coldly refused. The maestro's opinion: "Music takes precedence over politics. I don't think about these things because it is outside my competence. I have so many other things to think about." In any case the Black Sash women turned up at dawn the next morning to relight the torch on the city hall steps.