Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za
3-minute read | 18 November 2025 | 10:53 CAT

Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana gave a keynote address at the Black Sash 70th Gauteng regional event at Constitution Hill on Wednesday. Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers

Urgent reflection and renewed commitment mark the 70th anniversary of the Black Sash, one of South Africa’s most enduring voices for justice. Emerging in the darkest years of apartheid, the organisation’s founding members were “a handful of principled women draped in black sashes, silently speaking out against the oppressive apartheid system.” Their efforts, once rooted in a single street corner, grew into a national moral force that still shapes the country’s human rights landscape.

Speaking to Radio Islam International, Black Sash representative Amanda Rinquest traced the organisation’s origins to 1955, when women mobilised against the apartheid government’s removal of coloured people from the voters’ roll. Rinquest explains this betrayal clearly: “They took that away, and they thought that this was something to mourn, and that is what they did.”

Their activism rapidly widened. The organisation protested the implementation of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system, which fractured Black families across the country. “You cannot separate families,” Rinquest emphasised, recalling how Black Sash became a lifeline of solidarity during forced removals and urban segregation.

Nelson Mandela famously described the Black Sash as “the conscience of white South Africa, the moral compass, the truth teller, the ethical anchor in an era of silence.” Today, seven decades later, the organisation continues to embody that legacy this time in defence of the country’s most vulnerable social grant beneficiaries.

Rinquest noted, “Black Sash currently is actively involved in standing up for social grant recipient’s pensioners, children, the unemployed,” stressing that millions depend on grants to live with dignity. She added, “We mourn when the state ignores the needs of the poor when government is not creating a capable state and doing their work.”

Beyond advocacy, the organisation has expanded its reach through constitutional and financial literacy programmes across the country. “We train community advice officers and paralegals. We have a strong financial literacy program to help mitigate against predatory looting practices,” Rinquest said.

As Black Sash marks 70 years, its mandate remains unchanged: defending rights, strengthening democracy, and standing firm where injustice persists. In a nation still wrestling with inequality, governance failures, and poverty, its iconic black sash remains a symbol of both remembrance and resistance, a reminder that ordinary citizens can, and do, hold power to account.

Listen to the full interview on Sabahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat and Amanda Rinquest.