Seventy years after South Africa’s women’s march, the struggle is not over

Johannesburg, South Africa – Seventy years ago, Sophie Williams-de Bruyn was 18 when she joined about 20,000 women marching to the Union Buildings, the seat of South Africa’s apartheid government, to protest against the extension of the pass laws to Black women.

On August 9, 1956, the women gathered in Pretoria carrying a petition against laws that restricted the movement of Bla...