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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Urban Segregation: William Mvalo's Celebrated Stick Case |
| Author: | Tankard, Keith |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | South African Historical Journal |
| Issue: | 34 |
| Period: | May |
| Pages: | 29-38 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | segregation urban history Urbanization and Migration Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582479608671863 |
| Abstract: | The idea of segregated locations did not originate in Cape Town, as some historians of South Africa hold, but was drawn from the example of the eastern Cape where towns like East London, Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown already had locations in the early 1890s. This article describes the process of urban segregation in East London, starting with the case of William Mvalo who was prosecuted in August 1892 for carrying a stick ('knobkierie') within the limits of the municipality (the stick regulation had been in existence in East London since 1883). In the first instance Mvalo lost his case, in spite of the fact that this racist regulation was clearly in contradiction to the Colony's charter. He appealed against the decision, and this time the judges argued that the authority to make class legislation was the sole prerogative of Parliament and until the power 'to distinguish between inhabitants of one class or colour and of another' had been specifically conferred upon the municipality, the town council could not frame such regulations. The East London Municipal Bill of 1895, which incorporated three revolutionary racist clauses, met with little opposition in Parliament and became an Act of Parliament in July 1895. This Act allowed for legal segregation within the town (a full decade before discriminatory segregation became legal in Cape Town), and within two years the first legal discriminatory regulation was passed. Notes, ref. |
