President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on South Africans to be selfless and work to change the country for all.
He was speaking at the launch of the Milestones of Freedom campaign in Pretoria on Thursday.
This campaign commemorates key milestones in the country’s democratic journey, strengthens service delivery and promotes social cohesion.
The event observed defining milestones, including the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, the 50th anniversary of the 1976 youth uprisings, the 70th anniversary of the anti-pass campaign and the 60th anniversary of the forced removals from District Six.
“So, today we issue a call to activism, a call to service, a call to participate. This is a call to all of us to volunteer in a school, to mentor a young person, to clean a street, to grow a business. It is a call to serve on a School Governing Body, to report corruption, to prevent violence against women. It is a call to vote in every election and to hold to account those who are elected into public office. This is a call to register to vote this weekend, on the 20th and 21st of June. If we are to honour those who came before us, we should all of us be active participants in the national dialogue that is taking place across the country,” says Ramaphosa.
“As we launch the Milestones of Freedom, let us hold all four of these anniversaries in our hands at once: the women, the children and the dispossessed and the Constitution that turned their dreams into a promise of a better future.”
Address by President @CyrilRamaphosa on the… pic.twitter.com/NgKDdeT12F
— The Presidency
(@PresidencyZA) June 18, 2026
Ramaphosa also paid tribute to the women who participated in the 1956 Women’s March in Pretoria. On the 9th of August 1956, thousands of South African women, of all races, staged a march at the Union Buildings of Pretoria to protest against the abusive pass laws.
“Seventy years ago, on the 9th of August 1956 in the very place where we are today, 20 000 mothers of our nation converged to demand an end to the injustice and discrimination that the apartheid system had imposed on them. They came from the cities, they came from the countryside, many with their children strapped to their backs. They came to say to the apartheid state, in a single defiant voice, that they would not carry the hated dompas. They stood here stoically, quietly for 30 minutes.”
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