The Defiance Campaign Long Walk Original Manuscript (Image #118)

Robert Resha, Arnold Selby, Marupeng Seperepere, Stalwart Simelane, J.N. Singh, Betty du Toit, Freda Troupe and M.B. Yengwa. Duma Nokwe, Henri Makgothi and Alfred Hutchinson, young university graduates and prominent youth leaders, gave up teaching posts and joined their countrymen in prison. Even students like Lindi Ngakane, Mosie Moola, Moosa Moosajee, P. Padayachi, I. Cachalia, Harold Sundrum, Sydney Shall and E. Wadee, to mention but a few, could not resist the pull of dramatic events that were taking place around them. Apart from these and many others who were in prison there were scores of leading personalities who concentrated on the essential task of directing the campaign, recruiting and training volunteers, placing in suitable jobs those who were returning from prison, arranging legal defence for those who were being endorsed out of their homes under the influx control system, and attending to various kinds of welfare work. Without these men and women the campaign would never have taken off and apartheid would probably not have been regarded with such intense revulsion as it is today. In the midst of preparations for the campaign I had two lively experiences in the Orange Free State in two successive days. The Working Committee of the ANC had instructed me to visit Dr. Moroka at hsi home in Thaba Nchu with the draft of our first letter to Malan. As I drove out of Kroonstad at about 5 p.m. I collided with a white youngster on a bicycle. The police were soon on the spot. The sergeant in charge, who was in no mood for sweet words, advanced threateningly towards me, screaming "Kaffer, jy sal kak vandag!" (Kaffir, you will shit today). Shaken by his violence I tried