1954 — The Federation of South African Women

On April 17, 1954, 164 delegates representing 230,000 women gathered in Johannesburg to found the Federation of South African Women, a multiracial alliance against apartheid. There they drafted the Women's Charter, demanding equal pay and the end of every law denying women equality. From its first day, the federation set its terms plainly, in writing, on behalf of hundreds of thousands.

Two years later, those same women marched twenty thousand strong on Pretoria against the pass laws. It was the march South Africa still honors every August as Women's Day, a legacy that began in that Johannesburg hall and carried forward across South Africa.