Unisa Press
Information on the landmarks along the route, a walk to remember
UNISA – University of South Africa: one of the institutions identified to have been integral to the liberation movement. In the book, The Road to Democracy in South Africa Volume, 4, in Chapter 28, pg: 1519, the author Cedric Mayson explains that ‘Several of us took up correspondence studies at UNISA. But the real task was assisting activists in the struggle’. UNISA is also mentioned in Vol 6 of the series. Download a free access chapter of Volume 6 part 2 here.
Bosman Station now Pretoria: The first railway station in Pretoria was built in 1892. The railways transportation was identified as integral to the underground movement as well as the main transportation for women ‘after the Transportation Board refused to grant licences for the buses the protesters had hired to take them to the Union Buildings’.
In her autobiography, Helen Joseph describes how the women had to raise their own money to travel by rail, and how ‘the ANC branches rallied to the support of the women, calling public meetings … to raise the extra money’ after the Transportation Board refused to grant licences for the buses the protesters had hired to take them to the Union Buildings’. She further recalled that ‘the men went themselves to the railway station to purchase the train tickets’.
Find more information about the Women’s March story in The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 4 [1980–1990] pg: 1004
Pretoria Prison now Kgosi Mampuru II: is also encapsulated in the book title The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 2, pages 679-680, “More disastrously, about 42 Poqo members were executed at Pretoria Central Prison between 1963 and 1968. According to some estimates, 61 of the 101 people executed for political crimes in the 1960s were affiliated to the PAC.”
Freedom Park Heritage Site: is a cultural institution housing a museum and a memorial chronicling and honouring the many who contributed to South Africa's liberation. The museum aims to preserve and narrate the story of the African continent, and specifically South Africa, from the dawn of humanity, through pre-colonial, colonial and apartheid history and heritage, to the post-apartheid nation of today. It is a long walk, spanning some 3.6 billion years.
In the Road to Democracy Volume 2, page 28-29 it is said that, “SACTU leaders, therefore, stepped up communication with the people of South Africa through Radio Freedom. “Beginning in the late 1960s and more reliably from about 1973, South Africans began receiving the ANC’s ‘Radio Freedom’ on short wave from Zambia and Tanzania.” The radio device used for transmitting Radio Freedom referred to in the above citation is on show at the //hapo Museum at Freedom Park.
Last modified: 2023/07/30