Bettie du Toit

Bettie du Toit

Bettie du Toit OLS (also Elizabeth Sophia Honman,[1] 1910-2002) was a trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.

Biography

Du Toit was born in the former Transvaal Province on a farm, where she had one brother, though both children were orphaned by the age of three.[2] She grew up in a boarding school run by the Dutch Reformed Church at Platteland.[2] When Du Toit was eighteen, she moved to Johannesburg where she began to work with trade unionist, Johanna Cornelius.[2] Du Toit was assigned a Textile factory where she would organize workers for striking. The owner of the factory was Jewish and appreciated Du Toit's "anti-racist and anti-Nazi sensibilities."[2] During a textile worker's strike in the late 1920s, Du Toit was arrested and was fined "one pound or 10 days labour."[2] This incident made Du Toit more committed to striving for worker's rights.[2] In 1938, Du Toit went to Cape Town and the town of Huguenot to organize three textile factories which employed white women and black men working together.[3] During her time there, she attempted to form a union committee which had an equal number of white and black representatives.[3] Later, when she danced with the black union chairperson at a fundraising dance, many of the white union members resigned. She managed to rebuild the union, but it was never as strong after that.[3]

Du Toit met Nadine Gordimer in the 1950s and they became friends.[4] Du Toit also worked as an activist. She protested the Asiatic Land Tenure Act and took part in the Defiance Campaign.[2] She joined on December 6, 1952.[5] On the day of the protest in Johannesburg, December 8, Du Toit ensured that she and others were arrested (which was part of the goal).[6] She was later fined 50 pounds or fifty days with compulsory labour and she was jailed with Freda Troup for 25 days.[7]

Her participation in that campaign caused her in 1952 to be banned for life from participating in trade unions under the Suppression of Communism Act.[2] Du Toit began writing a book about the trade unions and worker's rights in a book called Ukubamba Amadolo (Go Slow).[2] She founded an organization to promote the welfare of people in Soweto called Kupugani.[2] Kupugani provided food to people in the black ghettoes, and it was against the law for her to be there.[4] She would travel to and from Soweto, wearing a disguise at night until she was discovered by the police.[2] In 1960, she was arrested.[8] In fear that she would be jailed long-term, she went into exile in 1963 London.[2]

She was smuggled out of the country by friends of Gordimer who were Indian.[1] Du Toit got stranded in Dar es Salaam, where Gordimer visited her and helped her get to Ghana.[4] In Ghana, Du Toit worked with trade unions and enjoyed being able to swim in the ocean.[1] She contracted Stevens-Johnson syndrome from polluted water and was not treated properly in the hospital.[1] She went blind and Gordimer appealed to have her brought to London where she lived with the help of Freda Levson, who had helped hide Nelson Mandela.[1] She taught herself Braille and then taught Braille to others.[2] Eventually, she was able to move back to South Africa.[1] She died there in 2002.[2]

Du Toit was reported by her friend, Gordimer, to have "met death without any religious beliefs of another life, as she had taken on, and lived to the full deprivation and danger, the life of a revolutionary for freedom."[1] In 2012, Du Toit was posthumously awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver under the name Elizabeth Sophia Honman.[1]

Personal life

Du Toit also openly defied the Immorality Act, living with her forbidden husband who was black.[4] They maintained the fiction that he was her gardener.[1]

See also

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Gordimer, Nadine (19 May 2012). "The Life of a Revolutionary for Freedom". News 24. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Bettie du Toit". South African History Online. 29 June 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 Berger 1992, p. 113-114.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Gordimer, Nadine (2006). Haidarian, Leyla T.; Plaatjie, Mbulelo S., eds. All That I Am...Because They Made a Difference in My Life. Spearhead. pp. 23–24. ISBN 9780864865892.
  5. ↑ Driver 1980, p. 95.
  6. ↑ Driver 1980, p. 97.
  7. ↑ Driver 1980, p. 98.
  8. ↑ Wästberg, Per (26 April 2001). "Nadine Gordimer and the South African Experience". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 16 August 2010.

Sources

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.