Long Walk to Freedom ( Nelson Mandela ) Chapter 12 Part 1

Long Walk to Freedom ( Nelson Mandela ) Chapter 12 Part 1

IN 1946 , a number of critical events occurred that shaped my political development and the direction of the struggle. The mineworkers’ strike of 1946, in which 70,000 African miners along the Reef went on strike, affected me greatly. At the initiative of J. B. Marks, Dan Tloome, Gaur Radebe, and a number of ANC labor activists, the African Mine Workers Union (AMWU) had been created in the early 1940s. There were as many as 400,000 African miners working on the Reef, most of them making no more than two shillings a day. The union leadership had repeatedly pressed the Chamber of Mines for a minimum wage of ten shillings a day, as well as family housing and two weeks’ paid leave. The chamber ignored the union’s demands. In one of the largest such actions in South African history, the miners went on strike for a week and maintained their solidarity. The state’s retaliation was ruthless. The leaders were arrested, the compounds surrounded by police, and the AMWU offices ransacked. A march w…