Stay-away!

From the book: My Spirit Is Not Banned by Frances Baard and Barbie Schreiner

In 1950 there was a big protest against this law called the Suppression of Communism, which was so the government could send communists and people like that to jail for a long time. The police broke up that protest and they shot some people there. Then there was a call all across the country on Freedom Day for everyone to stay away from work to protest against those shootings. The next year there was a stay-away on Freedom Day. In Port Elizabeth we didn't have this influx control law saying who can come and live and work there, and who is not allowed there. But now, at this time, they wanted to introduce this law in Port Elizabeth. So everyone in Port Elizabeth was very upset about this, and when we organized for the stay-away, we organized around this issue too.

We had big meetings in the townships, some of them outside, and we went from house to house knocking on each door and telling the people why they must not go to work on the 26th. It was easy for us to organize for the stay-at-home in Port Elizabeth because the trade union was very strong there, and there were a lot of us who were in the trade union and the ANC and so we talked to the workers at the factory as well as at home, and because they were already organized they understood what we were saying. So in Port Elizabeth the response to the stay-away was very, very strong. Lots of workers stayed away from work that day. It was a sign to the government how strong we were and that we would fight these bad things that they wanted to do to us.