Seventy years after helping lead 20,000 women to the Union Buildings, Sophie de Bruyn returned to those same steps with a challenge for South Africa: finish the march.
In 1956, the enemy was apartheid pass laws. In 2026, de Bruyn named a different set of forces restricting the freedom of South African women: gender-based violence, poverty, corruption, unemployment, homelessness, crime and inequality.
Speaking at the National Women’s Day commemoration at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Sunday, de Bruyn reflected on the extraordinary journey from the 18-year-old activist who confronted the apartheid state to one of the last surviving leaders of the historic Women’s March.
She recalled that the women who marched on 9 August 1956 were not without fear. What distinguished them was their determination to act despite it.
“The joy of that solidarity, the triumph of knowing that we could break the back of oppression is a fire that still burns deep within me even today,” de Bruyn said.
The women of 1956 believed their actions would help create a country in which future generations would be freed from the intersecting oppression of race, class and gender.
Seven decades later, de Bruyn acknowledged the freedoms South Africa has achieved, but also confronted what she described as the “painful paradox” of the country’s present reality.
“We fought to banish the pass laws, yet today our women are prisoners in their own homes. Gender-based violence continues to cast a dark cloud on our society,” she said.
For de Bruyn, this is the unfinished business of the march.
The pass laws may be gone, but freedom cannot be complete while women remain unsafe in their homes and communities, while poverty limits opportunity, and while corruption diverts resources that should be improving people’s lives.
Her challenge was directed not only at government.
She called on authorities to ensure that the sacrifices of the women who fought apartheid were not made in vain, urging leaders to demonstrate the same courage through ethical, accountable leadership and decisive action against corruption and violence.
“To the ordinary citizens of our country, in particular women, do not give up hope. Your vote, your voice and your unity are your critical weapons,” she said.
“We handed you a free country. It is now up to you to make it a safe and prosperous one.”
It was a striking handover between generations.
The women of 1956 marched against legislation designed to control their movement. De Bruyn’s call in 2026 is for South Africans to mobilise against the conditions that continue to restrict women’s ability to live safely, participate economically and determine their own futures.
“Let us march forward once more, not against pass laws. But this time against crime and insecurity, poverty, corruption, unemployment, homelessness, violence and the many ills that restrict your future, your safety, your freedom and your prosperity,” she said.
Her strongest message was reserved for young women.
“To the young women, do not wait for anyone’s permission. Stand up, use your voice and fight for your future, fight against poverty and abuse. Just like we fought against apartheid.”
She called on them to “finish the march we began 70 years ago” and allow the spirit of 1956 to rise again in a new generation.
That generational connection was reinforced by Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who joined the commemoration and paid tribute to the courage of the women who challenged apartheid decades before freedom was achieved.
Yousafzai, herself a global symbol of the struggle for girls’ education after surviving an assassination attempt for speaking out, reflected on the extraordinary risks taken by black South African women during apartheid.
“It took incredible courage to speak out in 1956, four decades before the end of apartheid,” she said.
“They faced not only the racial discrimination of apartheid but the added burdens of being women in a patriarchal society. Yet, they chose to lead and demanded to be seen.”
For Yousafzai, South Africa’s experience also holds lessons beyond its borders. She said she had returned to the country not only to commemorate the anniversary but to learn from people such as de Bruyn about how generations of South Africans organised, persisted and ultimately forced the world to listen.
The two women spoke ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa at the National Women’s Day commemoration, held under the theme “Empowered Women, Empower Nations.”
The anniversary forms part of a significant year of remembrance for South Africa. In 2026, the country is also marking 30 years since the adoption of the Constitution, 50 years since the 1976 youth uprising and 60 years since the forced removals from District Six.
Together, those anniversaries tell different parts of the same story: people challenging systems that denied them dignity, opportunity and freedom.
But de Bruyn’s return to the Union Buildings makes the Women’s Day anniversary particularly powerful.
At 18, she walked towards a building representing a government determined to restrict the freedom of women like her.
Seventy years later, she returned to the same place in a democratic South Africa, not simply to remember what was achieved, but to ask what this generation intends to do with the freedom her generation helped secure.
Her message was not that South Africa needs another march identical to 1956.
It was that every generation has its own march to finish.
In 2026, Sophie de Bruyn has named it.
