“The strength of the Black Sash is that it was formed by women, who have fantastic power when they work together,” says Mary Burton.
In 1955, six middle class white women formed the Black Sash to campaign for justice at a time when apartheid laws were tearing the lives of black South Africans apart. “Our advice offices were a centre of activity,” says Burton of the late 50s.
The offices provided paralegal support to people battling pass laws, while Black Sash members in neat dresses took to the streets to protest the injustices brought to their door. They wore a black sash to mourn the death of the constitution.
“Every now and again we would win a small victory ... but there were dozens of people coming to the door every day,” says Burton. “A lot of people would ask: ‘What's the good? You're not doing anything except helping one or two people’.
“But the good was that we were not allowing the public to forget. My side of the work was trying to raise public awareness.”
Black Sash demonstrators received national attention and were spat on in the streets. The organisation never had more than about 2,000 members.
“I’m trying to imagine what it was like for you,” says Rachel Bukasa, 50 years her junior.
“Many women who worked very hard for the Black Sash could not afford to have their pictures in the paper ... because their husbands were either afraid that this would impact on their working life or just completely opposed to it,” says Burton.
“Apart from students, very few white people were standing up [to apartheid].”
She smiles. “We used to say we could ruin any party. You’d sit quietly for a while ... then you just had to burst out about something or other.”
The advice offices were still full. We knew we had to leave something behind
— Black Sash patron, Mary Burton
“I was very lucky with my husband. He came from a very traditional family and could easily have been upset about this new wife,” she says. Instead, the churchgoing Geoff Burton supported her.
“By the 70s it was getting really hard for people in the townships and we were there much more, trying to build up organisations. We were working with women’s organisations who eventually [swelled] the great wave of the UDF,” says Burton. “Suddenly we had hope.”
Once there was a democratic government in power, the Black Sash had to rethink its role. In 1995 the old Black Sash became the Black Sash Trust, with full-time staff to continue its social justice work. “The advice offices were still full. We knew we had to leave something behind,” says Burton.
Many problems have remained the same, with new elements. Bukasa says, for example: “A modern problem is that people are struggling to get government services because they are offered online.”
Every month about 2,500 people call the Sash helpline. The trust also does community-based monitoring of service delivery, and education and training, including of paralegals. The Sash’s campaign for a basic income grant (BIG) in SA is gaining momentum.
A Black Sash report this year on children’s food security and child support grants found that hunger and malnutrition were rampant. Bukasa says: “We did not understand why people were reluctant to tell us what their children ate. Then one woman told us she was so embarrassed to admit they don’t have food.”
Successful “new Black Sash” campaigns include Hands Off Our Grants, which went all the way to the Constitutional Court and saw the return of millions to social grant recipients in fraud-related complaints. The litigation resulted in former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini having to pay a portion of their legal costs out of her own pocket for her role in the crisis.
Burton says of their victory: “To see all those people from the community ... sitting in those orange T-shirts saying ‘hands off our grants’ and the judges in their very beautiful robes was marvellous.”
“The legal system does provide for people to claim their rights. It will take a long time, but it works, and we have got to protect it,” she says.
On her wish list is the sharing of privilege in SA. "We should be trying to build a society that benefits everyone. I cannot understand how young people who are privileged are not eager to provide security for their fellow people to have access to the minimum.”
Gender-based violence and inequalities, like the pay gap, must be addressed or there will be no new society, says Bukasa. Women were the first to lose jobs during the pandemic and bore the heaviest load.
Women must fight every step of the way for equality, says Burton, even in sport where the SA women’s footballers and cricketers struggle to get kitted out like the men. “I was so thrilled when Banyana Banyana won their game! [Afcon final]” she says.
“We need the men in our lives to come to the table, to be part of the solution,” says Bukasa.
“It is 2022. Are we making a big enough impact?” she asks. Her answer: “We are changing one life at a time.”
“What people don’t understand about social injustice is that it's not just contained here,” she holds out her hands. “It is everywhere. I think the importance of fixing it in one spot is that then it shows other people elsewhere that they can get it right.”
Black Sash patron, Mary Burton, 82
Mary Burton has been a human-rights activist for more than 60 years. Soon after she stepped off a boat from Argentina in Cape Town, after marrying a South African, the 21-year-old started questioning apartheid.
“It was 1961 and nobody spoke to me about the Rivonia trial, about the fact that Mandela was on trial ... I had been a journalist in Brazil and was used to asking questions. The more questions I asked, the more uncomfortable I made people.”
In the mid-1960s she found like-minded friends when she joined the Black Sash. “People like [the late] Sheena Duncan were our guiding stars. We learnt from them,” says Burton.
When she was the national president, from 1986 to 1990, the Black Sash was on the front line with United Democratic Front organisations in mobilising against apartheid rule.
In 1994 Burton was again elected Black Sash president and was appointed “at the very last minute” to be the Western Cape co-ordinator of the first democratic elections.
She slept many nights on their office floor because they only had weeks to pull together the April 27 election. “This was a time of euphoria, anxiety and glimpses of hope,” says Burton.
The next year she was chosen to be one of 17 commissioners for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and travelled SA, hearing stories of atrocities, trauma and grief. Now she is involved in a TRC support group for people still seeking reparations and justice.
Her husband of 61 years, Geoff, has given her unstinting support, and their four children and 10 grandchildren are proud of their matriarch.
Burton’s contribution to democracy and social justice in SA has been honoured by multiple awards, including the Order of Luthuli in silver.
Nelson Mandela, at his first rally after release from prison.
— “I also salute the Black Sash and the National Union of South African Students. We note with pride that you have acted as the conscience of white South Africa. Even during the darkest days in the history of our struggle you held the flag of liberty high.”
Black Sash executive director, Rachel Bukasa, 32
Bukasa is a lawyer who has specialised in human and international rights law. Early last year she was appointed to lead the Black Sash Trust.
The soft-spoken activist, who went to law school at UCT, made her decision to be an activist lawyer while still a child.
“Once I went with my father to the bank and the lady would not help him because he did not have a green ID with him. She was rude and disrespectful. I was crying and I remember making the decision then ‘he has rights and someone needs to enforce those rights’.
“That was the moment I decided there is something wrong here that has to be fixed,” says Bukasa.
After she graduated from UCT, she worked as a commercial attorney before moving into NGO work. What keeps her up at night is how to reach and empower the most vulnerable in society, she says.
Before her appointment at the Black Sash Trust, she was executive director for the Western Cape and Eastern Cape Refugee Centre.
“I combine my legal expertise with the heart of social activism,” says Bukasa.
