Z.K. Matthews Proposes a Congress of the People – 1953

On 15 and 16 August 1953, the Cape provincial conference of the African National Congress was held at Cradock. During the conference, Kimberley-born academic and political leader Professor Z.K. Matthews proposed an ambitious idea: a national gathering where ordinary South Africans could express the kind of country in which they wished to live. Matthews called for a Congress of the People, bringing together representatives from communities across South Africa to draw up a national declaration of democratic principles.

The proposal was subsequently supported by the ANC and formally adopted at its national conference in Queenstown in December 1953. The idea eventually became reality when more than 3,000 delegates gathered at Kliptown, near Johannesburg, on 25 and 26 June 1955. There, the Congress of the People adopted one of the most important political documents in South African history — the Freedom Charter.

Its famous opening declaration, “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”, expressed a vision of a democratic and non-racial society at a time when apartheid was becoming increasingly entrenched. The initiative proposed by Z.K. Matthews in August 1953 therefore helped set in motion a process that would have a lasting influence on South Africa's liberation struggle and, decades later, the country's constitutional democracy.

Did You Know?

Professor Z.K. Matthews was born in Kimberley in 1901. He became one of South Africa's most respected academics and political thinkers and played an important role in the African National Congress during the struggle against apartheid.

Mandela and De Klerk Hold Emergency Talks – 1990

On 16 August 1990, President F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela held emergency talks in Pretoria as political violence threatened South Africa's fragile transition towards democracy. Serious fighting had broken out in Soweto, including attacks involving migrant workers and commuters around railway stations. The violence formed part of a wider and increasingly bitter conflict involving supporters of the African National Congress and the Inkatha movement.

Mandela met De Klerk to find ways to contain the violence before it developed into an even greater conflict. The meeting took place only months after Mandela's release from prison and during a period in which negotiations for a democratic South Africa were beginning while violence continued to claim thousands of lives.

Did You Know?

The political negotiations of the early 1990s took place against a backdrop of severe violence in parts of South Africa. Despite this instability, talks between the government, the ANC and other political organisations ultimately led to the country's first democratic national election in April 1994.

The Marikana Massacre – 2012

On 16 August 2012, South African police opened fire on striking mineworkers at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana in the North West Province. Thirty-four mineworkers were killed and 78 were wounded. More than 250 people were arrested. The miners had been taking part in a strike centred on demands for higher wages and improved working conditions. Tensions had escalated during the preceding days, during which other people, including mineworkers, security personnel and police officers, had also been killed.

The events of 16 August became one of the most shocking moments in democratic South Africa's history and revived painful memories of the use of lethal police force against protesters during the apartheid era. President Jacob Zuma, who had been attending a Southern African Development Community summit in Maputo, cut short his visit and returned to South Africa. A commission of inquiry was subsequently established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths. The events at Marikana continue to form an important part of national debate about labour relations, policing, inequality and the conditions experienced by mineworkers.

Did You Know?

Mining has shaped South Africa's economy and society for well over a century. Kimberley's diamond mines were among the earliest large industrial mining operations in the country, followed later by the enormous gold, coal and platinum industries that transformed South Africa's economy.

Kimberley's Story Continues

The events remembered on 16 August stretch across very different periods of South African history — from the struggle to imagine a democratic future in the 1950s, through the turbulent negotiations of the early 1990s, to the continuing challenges of labour, inequality and policing in modern South Africa. For Kimberley, Z.K. Matthews's contribution provides an especially important connection. From his beginnings in the Diamond City, he became one of the intellectual figures whose ideas helped shape the political vision that eventually contributed to democratic South Africa.