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You Have Struck a Rock

Medu Art Ensemble. You Have Struck a Rock. 1981

Left: Medu Art Ensemble (Botswana, active 1978–1985). You Have Struck a Rock. 1981. Screenprinted poster. Sheet: 23 5/8 x 16 9/16" (60 x 42 cm). Designer: Judy Seidman. Publisher and Printer: Medu Art Ensemble, Gabrone, Botswana. Edition: approximately 300. General Print Fund, 2010. © 2011 Judy Seidman. Right: Artist and activist Thami Mnyele (standing) of Medu Art Ensemble speaks at the Swedish Embassy, Gaborone, Botswana, on Women’s Day, August 9, 1981. © 2011 Albio González

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This poster was created for Women’s Day, a South African national holiday commemorating a 1956 demonstration in Pretoria. Thousands of women gathered to protest the apartheid government’s pass laws, which required black South Africans to carry documents authorizing their presence in racially restricted areas. The text is based on a song that became the anthem of women’s struggle against apartheid and that today represents the strength of South African women in general. The poster was printed by Medu Art Ensemble, a collective of South African exiles and activists formed in 1978 in Gaborone, Botswana, eight miles across the South African border.