This article indicates the importance of a thorough study of local sources on protest action
by township residents in Makweteng (earlier known as Potchefstroom’s native location)
against oppressive laws and policies in South Africa. Although the term ‘grassroots support’
only became a common one much later in South Africa’s history, the study of local
documents indicates the protracted broad swell of dissatisfaction among black South
African citizens against legalised segregation and later apartheid. In the case of some
individuals and local organisations these views articulated with protests on a national level.
This article covers the period 1904 to 1950 and looks at the strenuous efforts by white
authorities to dominate this township on a municipal level; the limited influence of the
native advisory bodies and localised national organisations in resisting this control; and the
singular abilities and contributions of Lazarus R. Muthle and James Z. Mdatyulwa in
Potchefstroom’s protests. It also indicates how this protest gradually helped to build the
basis for encompassing resistance, including resistance of an intellectual nature, in the 1970s
and 1980s.
Hierdie artikel dui op die belang van ’n grondige studie van plaaslike bronne in verband met
protes en weerstand van ’n township (vroeër, Potchefstroomse naturelle-lokasie) se
inwoners teen onderdrukkende wetgewing en behandeling in Suid-Afrika. Alhoewel die
term “grassroots support” (voetsoolvlak-steun) eers heelwat later in die Suid-Afrikaanse
geskiedenis ’n algemene term geword het; dui die studie van plaaslike dokumente op die
uitgerekte en wye golf van ontevredenheid onder swart Suid-Afrikaanse burgers teen
wetlike segregasie en later apartheid; en hoe, in die geval van sekere individue en plaaslike
organisasies, hierdie sienings geartikuleer het met protes op nasionale vlak. Die artikel dek
die enorme pogings van die wit munisipale owerhede om die lokasie te domineer, die uiters
beperkte invloed van die naturelle-adviesrade en ook gelokaliseerde nasionale organisasies
om hierdie beheer te weerstaan, die uitsonderlike vermoëns en bydraes van Lazarus R.
Muthle en James Z. Mdatyulwa in Potchefstroomse protes en hoe, deur hulle optrede op plaaslike vlak, en te midde van hul wisselvallige verblyfreg, hierdie protes geleidelik bygedra
het tot die onderbou van omvattende weerstand, insluitende dié van ’n intellektuele aard in
die 1970s en 1980s.
