About 30,000 people join the Cape Town peace march
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Allan Boesak, Mayor Gordon Oliver and other leaders led a crowd of about 30,000 from St George's Cathedral to the Grand Parade, in the first large protest the new government allowed.
On 13 September 1989 a crowd usually put at about 30,000 walked from St George's Cathedral to the Grand Parade and City Hall. At the front were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Reverend Allan Boesak, Cape Town's mayor Gordon Oliver and other church, civic, trade union and business leaders. Contemporary wire reports gave lower counts, and thousands more watched from the pavements.
The march followed a tense fortnight. On 2 September police had turned a water cannon with purple dye on protesters in the city centre, and on 6 September, the day of the whites-only general election, police action against protests left many people dead in and around Cape Town. F. W. de Klerk, then acting president, let the march go ahead after an earlier ban, and it passed without confrontation. Similar marches soon followed in Johannesburg and Durban.
Why it matters
It was one of the largest protests in Cape Town since 1960 and the first mass anti-apartheid march in years to go ahead legally. The government's decision to allow it was an early sign that the ban on open protest was ending, months before Nelson Mandela's release.
- Source: SAHO, "Tutu leads biggest anti-apartheid protest march in South Africa" · UPI Archives, "Thousands march in Cape Town", 13 September 1989 · Daily Maverick, Piyushi Kotecha (Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation), "The September 1989 Cape Town peace march rocked apartheid", 12 September 2021 · Stephanie Urdang, "The Story of Cape Town's Two Marches", Nokoko 4 (Carleton University, 2014)
Where it happened
St George's Cathedral, Wale Street
Assembly point. Marchers gathered at and around the cathedral before noon, after a service inside. The pin is the cathedral building.
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Where it happened Exact site
St George's Cathedral, Wale Street
Assembly point. Marchers gathered at and around the cathedral before noon, after a service inside. The pin is the cathedral building.
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Where it happened Exact site
Grand Parade and City Hall
Destination. The march ended on the Grand Parade outside City Hall, about 500 m east of the cathedral. The exact streets taken are not given in the sources checked, so no route line is drawn.
