“On the 9th of August 1959, twenty thousand women of all races marched on the Union Building in Pretoria to protest the proposed amendments to the Urban Areas Act, commonly known as the Pass Laws of 1950. the women stood together, arms raised in the air in the clenched fist of the Congress Salute and sang ‘You strike a woman, you strike a rock’. It is remembered as one of the major milestones in the struggle against the apartheid regime and the date is now commemorated as Women’s Day.”
