The Story Of Defiance

The defiance campaign was born over a year ago, in Johannesburg, on July 1951, when non-white leaders met and decided to form a Joint Planning Council to co-ordinate Africans, Indians and Coloureds, and "to embark upon an immediate mass campaign for the repeal of oppressive measures" which the Council pledged to attack were, and still are, limited to the Pass Laws, Stock Limitations, the Group Areas Act, the Separate Voters, Represantation Act, the Bantu Authorities Act, and the Suppresssion of Communism Act. The Joint Planning Council consisted of J.B. Marks, Dr Moroka and Walter Sisulu, of the African National Congress. They issued a report, to be put before the African National Congress, the Government should be called on to repeal the unjust laws, if they refused, mass demonstrations were to be held followed by the defiance campaign. (Photograph by Bob Gosani Baileys Archives) ANC, neg 096