The BLACK SASH

The Story of the South African Women's Defence of the Constitution League. Compiled from official records and written by Mirabel Rogers. With 32 cartoons and 80 photographs. Cream cloth boards, 273 pages. Previous ownership on fep. The dust jacket has scars and paper loss along the edges. Not price clipped.

The Black Sash is a South African human rights organisation. It was founded in Johannesburg in 1955 as a non-violent resistance organisation for liberal white women. The Black Sash was founded on 19 May 1955 by six middle-class white women, Jean Sinclair, Ruth Foley, Elizabeth McLaren, Tertia Pybus, Jean Bosazza and Helen Newton-Thompson. The organisation was founded as the Women’s Defence of the Constitution League but was eventually shortened by the press as the Black Sash due to the women's habit of wearing black sashes at their protest meetings. These black sashes symbolised the mourning for the South Africa Constitution. The founding members gathered for tea in Johannesburg before they decided to organise a movement against the Senate Act. They succeeded in holding a vigil of 2 000 women who marched from Jobert Park to the Johannesburg City Hall. (wikipedia)