This Day in History: June 13, 1946
Additional Date: June 13, 1946
Led by Dr G.M. Naicker and Dr. Y.M. Dadoo, Indians observed complete hartal, that is, a day of mourning or protest on which all the shops were shut and no-one went to work or did any shopping, throughout the country. Mass meetings were held in many cities and towns. A mass meeting of over 15 000 people at the Red Square in Durban was addressed by Dr Naicker. After the meeting, a procession marched to the corner of Gale Street and Umbilo Road where the first batch of seventeen Passive Resisters, including seven women, pitched five tents on a piece of vacant municipal land in defiance of the Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act, the so-called Ghetto Act, enacted by the Smuts Government.