In the dusty heart of Kliptown on the outskirts of apartheid-era Johannesburg, a bold and unprecedented gathering took place on 26 June 1955 — an audacious act of defiance that would echo through the decades of struggle to come. Under threat of state surveillance and repression, thousands of delegates assembled to give birth to a revolutionary vision: the Freedom Charter — a political blueprint that challenged colonial domination and apartheid authoritarianism.
Seventy years on, as South Africa reflects on the charter’s legacy, the question is: has the dream been deferred? Is the charter a moral compass that can guide the country away from corruption, inequality and political disillusionment and back to our better selves?
This year’s commemorations unfold under a dark cloud — a public fallout between the KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner and the police minister over alleged ties to criminal networks and tenderpreneurs.
Generations of activists, cadres and civic leaders placed their hopes in the Freedom Charter, seeing in it a roadmap to liberation. But even as it was being drafted, apartheid’s machinery was already erasing the very communities that embodied those ideals.
The Group Areas Act (7 July 1950): Apartheid was in full stride, enforcing the Act, one of its most brutal instruments. This law forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of black, Indian, coloured and Chinese South Africans from inner-city areas of Johannesburg such as Fordsburg, Pageview and Vrededorp.
As activists in Kliptown imagined a non-racial democracy, trucks and trailers loaded with furniture and frightened families rolled down the streets. They were carted off to racially zoned outposts — Lenasia for Indians, Eldorado Park for coloureds, Soweto for Africans — grim apartheid gulags far from the economic and cultural lifeblood of the city.
This was not isolated. The Act segregated cities and rural areas and dismembered communities throughout South Africa.
From Durban’s Cato Manor and Warwick Avenue Triangle to Cape Town’s District Six and the mixed suburbs of East London and Port Elizabeth, the Group Areas Act tore through multiracial communities like a wrecking ball. It erased history, memory, identity. The irony was stark: while the Congress Alliance was fine-tuning the most progressive political document ever to emerge from colonised Africa, the apartheid state was redrawing the map with bulldozers and police.
The Congress of the People (26 June 1955): A historic gathering in a divided nation. Representing the ANC, the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Congress, the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, more than 3 000 delegates — workers, students, religious leaders, professionals — descended on Kliptown. They gathered in makeshift tents, surrounded by spies and state agents, and proclaimed the charter’s enduring declaration: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.”
This was no mere manifesto. It was a moral declaration and revolutionary charter, forged in unity across racial and ideological lines, and it transformed Kliptown into sacred political ground.
But Kliptown was not only the site of vision, it was a victim of apartheid’s violence. Once a vibrant, multiracial township like District Six or Sophiatown, it was gutted by the Group Areas Act, its dynamic cultural life replaced by decay and marginalisation.
Lenasia: A paradox born of pain. One of the Act’s most visible legacies is Lenasia, established as a segregated Indian township but later transformed through grit and community spirit into a story of survival and reinvention.
Lenasia’s success rests on four pillars: entrepreneurship, education, cultural cohesion and political activism. Small businesses, from cafés to wholesalers, became the backbone of a self-sustaining local economy. Sacrifices by working-class families produced generations of professionals. Mosques, temples and community halls fostered unity and resistance. Lenasia produced leaders and journalists who fuelled the anti-apartheid movement.
Today, Lenasia has malls, new schools and clinics. But inequalities persist. Its story mirrors that of South Africa: potential stifled by paradox, promise shadowed by injustice.
The Charter’s legacy and the Indian contribution: South Africans of Indian descent played a pivotal role in drafting and defending the Freedom Charter. Braving bans, detentions and threats, they stood with comrades of all colours. Among them were Dr Yusuf Dadoo; Ahmed Kathrada; IC Meer, Nana Sita, Kay Moonsamy, Debi Singh, Thambi Naidoo (Jr), Monty Naicker, Dr K Goonam and Swaminathan Gounden — each fearless in defiance.
As Kay Moonsamy put it: “Our struggle was not for favours, it was for freedom.”
The apartheid state retaliated. In 1956, 156 leaders were charged with treason, including Chief Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Helen Joseph and Yusuf Dadoo. The trial ended in acquittals in 1961.
A long arc of struggle:
1955, the Freedom Charter is adopted in Kliptown;
1956-61, the Treason Trial;
1960s-80s, the Charter is the underground symbol of resistance;
1990, the ANC is unbanned and Mandela released;
1994, the first democratic elections;
1996, the Constitution is adopted, echoing the Freedom Charter.
As Justice Albie Sachs said: “The Constitution of 1996 is the legal child of the Freedom Charter.”
Today, Kliptown is both a heritage site and a cautionary tale. The hall still stands, but around it are informal settlements, failing infrastructure and unemployment. It’s a metaphor for a democracy unfinished.
To read the Freedom Charter today is to hear both a dream and a rebuke. Its bold declarations:
“The People Shall Govern!
There Shall Be Work and Security!
The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall Be Opened!
The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It!”
These were demands for justice, dignity and equality. The gulf between Zimbali Estate’s affluence and Cato Crest’s deprivation, between District Six’s memory and the Cape Flats’ misery, reminds us how far we have to go.
The Freedom Charter remains a living document. Its power lies not in nostalgia, but in renewed action and radical hope.
Marlan Padayachee is a veteran correspondent from South Africa’s transition to democracy, and is now a freelance journalist, photographer and researcher.