Families reckon with apartheid's legacy as South Africa launches freedom milestone campaig

South Africans gathered at the Chief Albert Luthuli Campus of uMfolozi TVET College in the iLembe District on Thursday to mark something larger than a ceremony. For the families and communities whose lives were shaped by apartheid pass laws, forced removals and the struggle for basic rights, the provincial launch of the Milestones of Freedom Campaign carried personal weight.

Deputy Minister in the Presidency Kenny Morolong delivered the address, framing the occasion as both a reckoning and a reminder. Democracy, he said, has delivered real change for millions of South Africans. But the work is far from done.

The campaign, launched nationally by President Cyril Ramaphosa in June 2026, runs under the theme “Honouring the Past. Delivering the Future.” It marks four anniversaries at once: 30 years of the Constitution, 50 years since the 1976 Youth Uprising, 70 years since the 1956 Women’s March, and 60 years since the forced removals from District Six. Each date means something different depending on who you ask, and which chapter of the country’s history touched your family most directly.

For many ordinary South Africans, the changes since 1994 are visible in daily life. Access to piped municipal water has expanded significantly. Millions more people now receive social grants. Housing has improved. In KwaZulu-Natal specifically, more residents have access to water and sanitation services, and the province accounts for one of the largest shares of school attendance in the country.

Education tells a particularly striking story. The national matric pass rate climbed from 58% in 1994 to 88% in 2025. KwaZulu-Natal led the country that year, recording a 90.6% pass rate in the National Senior Certificate examinations. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme has funded more than five million students from low-income and working-class families, opening doors to higher education that were firmly shut a generation ago.

Meanwhile, the legacy of those who fought for these gains runs through the campaign’s commemorations. Morolong acknowledged the more than 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 to oppose apartheid pass laws, naming struggle icons Dorothy Nyembe and Mary Thipe from KwaZulu-Natal among them. Women now hold approximately 43.5% of seats in Parliament. Justice Mandisa Maya’s appointment as South Africa’s first female Chief Justice in 2024 marked a concrete shift in who holds power at the highest levels.

Yet the gaps remain real. Women continue to face poverty, unemployment, gender-based violence, unequal economic opportunities, and barriers to leadership and land ownership. Progress on paper has not always translated into safety or security on the ground.

Land restitution has restored something beyond property to many communities. Government has settled more than 83,000 land claims nationally since 1995, returning 3.9 million hectares to dispossessed individuals and communities. In KwaZulu-Natal alone, 16,903 claims have been settled, representing nearly 890,000 hectares restored. Morolong put it plainly: “These gains are not just about land; they are about justice, healing and building a more inclusive future for our people.”

The Constitution, he argued, underpins all of it. “The Constitution remains the cornerstone of our democracy and ensures that all laws align with the values and spirit of our democratic order,” he said. The document has provided the legal foundation for equality, human dignity and freedom, while the separation of powers and Chapter 9 institutions have kept accountability structures in place.

The campaign will continue rolling out across the country. What it leaves open is the harder question: whether the pace of change in the years ahead will match the scale of what ordinary South Africans, particularly women, young people, and land-dispossessed communities, are still waiting for.