The Reference Book
1952 · Pass Book · Work 711 of 1,871
A small worn cloth-bound book in the breast pocket of a work jacket at a bus stop on the edge of a township in the Transvaal in South Africa in the early morning of 1952, the book closed, sixteen centimetres tall and nine centimetres wide, bound in blue linen, the cover worn smooth and plain, page edges yellowed, its upper half rising out of the pocket of a faded khaki drill jacket, the wearer seen from behind over his shoulder, his hand resting flat on the pocket, a red dirt road, a corrugated iron shelter, waiting men in caps and coats seen from behind and soft in focus, dusty golden backlight from the low sun.
- What it was used for
- The reference book was an identity book that black South Africans had to carry at all times. It was introduced by the Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act, Act 67 of 1952. In the account of South African History Online the Act replaced men's existing papers with a single document recording identity, work, residence, tax payment and, where applicable, permission to be in urban areas. The Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa described it in 1989 as "96 pages thick", in a standard green or brown issue, and wrote that it had to be carried at all times by all Africans. A government commission report of 1955 called it the reference book "that may be compared to a passport" - a passport for travel inside one's own country.
- What was new
- What was new was not the pass. Pass laws had existed long before, and the Act's title promised to repeal them. What was new was the consolidation: several separate papers became one book in which everything could be checked in a single move - identity, work, right of residence and taxes. That is where the sting lies. The same Act that carried the abolition of passes in its name provided, in the account of South African History Online, that African women would for the first time be required to carry reference books, at a date still to be fixed. In September 1955 the government announced issue to women from January 1956. On 22 March 1956 at Winburg in the Free State 1,429 women received their books, at first with little reaction. The next week Lilian Ngoyi spoke in the town, and local women burned their new books in front of the magistrate's office. They were arrested and charged. By September 1956 the authorities had visited 37 small towns and issued 23,000 books.
What the sources leave open: The figure of 96 pages appears only in a 1989 reference work, quoted in the Dictionary of South African English. I found no official statement of it. The pages consulted do not give the exact date of the Act, only the year 1952. Nor do they give overall figures for arrests under the pass laws.