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March is Women’s History Month, and each year I like to reflect on some of the amazing women I’ve known who helped shape me as a person. As I grow older, I find myself increasingly interested in better understanding my own family history.
This is especially the case because my family emigrated from South Africa to the United States when I was a child, and I grew up far away from extended family. The geographical divide made me hunger for stories about our relatives, including my maternal and paternal grandmothers.
My maternal grandmother was a member of the Black Sash, a South African human rights organization founded by six white women in 1955. It was officially named the Women’s Defence of the Constitution League, but it was referred to by the media as the Black Sash because the women wore black sashes during their protests as a symbol of their mourning for the rights enshrined in the South African Constitution.
The Black Sash was formed following the passage of a law stripping the voting rights of multiracial South Africans. The founders organized more than 2,000 women, one of whom was my grandmother, to march to Johannesburg’s City Hall in protest. In 1956, my grandmother marched in Pretoria with the Black Sash to protest the notorious Pass Laws, which restricted the movements of Black South Africans and other people of color.
She also founded a program that prepared and delivered meals to impoverished children in the township of Mamelodi, where education and employment opportunities were severely curtailed under apartheid. She died when I was 2 years old, and I know her only through photos and my mother’s storytelling.
My paternal grandmother was born in India, where her father, a colonel, served as a surgeon with the British Army. They moved to Zimbabwe six years later. My grandmother went on to earn her medical degree, at one point traveling the Zambezi River providing free medical care to local villagers. She married my grandfather, who was also a doctor, and they settled in South Africa and had two sons.
My grandfather served as a regimental medical officer for the Royal Durban Light Infantry during World War II, and like other wartime families, he and my grandmother lived apart from 1940 to 1945 while she continued to work and raise their boys.
Alys practiced medicine until she was 79, then celebrated her 80th birthday by dog-sledding in Alaska. She lived with us for a short time while I was in middle school, and I recall being in awe of this woman who seemed forged of steel.
Looking back through the lens of adulthood, I now realize she had to be tough in order to lead her chosen life as a doctor—one of a pioneering group of women who worked as medical doctors in what was then largely a male profession—and to endure the hardships of war.
Both of my grandmothers inspire me with their courage. They took action when they saw a pressing need, whether it was protesting unjust laws or providing medical care to people who couldn’t afford it. They endured criticism but stood by their beliefs. My admiration for both women has only grown over the years as I better appreciate the struggles each faced.
This Women’s History Month, let’s pay tribute to the women in our lives—both personal and professional—who inspire us.•
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Fiddian-Green is president and CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, whose mission is to advance the vitality of Indianapolis and the well-being of its people. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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