PREAMBLE
FREEDOM in the Union of South Africa is in grave jeopardy. The South African Government has relentlessly over the past few years extended its policy of organized racism — apartheid. 156 leaders who have peacefully sought a just society for all, black and white, are now charged with treason and involved in court action. Laws have just been passed making it a crime for white and nonwhite to pray in the same church or to study in the same school. Outstanding intellectuals are under court charge for addressing a racially- mixed meeting.
Africans are being forced from homes they have occupied for many years so that whites can take over their land. The right to vote is being taken away from colored people in the same manner in which Africans were disenfranchised twenty-one years ago. The Bantu Education Act is being vigorously implemented to educate the African for a role no higher than that of servant in the white mans world.
People everywhere who care about freedom can no longer remain silent while justice and reason are being sacrificed by a Government still enjoying friendly relations with democratic nations of the world.
DECLARATION
WE and free peoples everywhere support the overwhelming majority of the South African people, non-white and white, in their struggle for equality. We support them in their dedication to liberty and their determination to achieve basic human rights for all as proclaimed in their "Freedom Charter":
"We the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know —
That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; That only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together — equals, countrymen, and brothers — adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing nothing of our strength and courage, until democratic changes . . . have been won."
We call on all who are devoted to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Human Rights to join with us in supporting this Declaration of Conscience and in proclaiming December 10, 1957, Human Rights Day, as a Day of Protest against the organized inhumanity of the South African Government and its apartheid policies.
We call upon free men and women throughout the world to appeal on this day to the Government of the Union of South Africa to observe its moral and legal obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Charter.
We call upon men and women everywhere to concentrate their moral and spiritual forces in a universal effort — through prayer, public meetings, and all other peaceful means — on December 10, 1957.
We call upon all members of free associations including churches, trade unions, fraternal societies, business, professional, veterans, and other groups to petition their governments and their organizations to mobilize their influence in bringing about a peaceful, democratic and just solution in South Africa.
We seek to demonstrate to the Government of South Africa that free men will not tolerate the suppression of freedom. We seek to persuade the South African Government, before it reaches the point of no return, that only in democratic equality is there peace and security.
Source: In a Single Garment of Destiny, Beacon Press. 2012.
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