In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie tells the story of Taffy Long who was executed for a murder that took place during the 1922 Rand Revolt. The piece was originally published on the City of Johannesburg's website on 5 July 2002. Click here to view more of Davie's work. The image above shows Fordsburg Market Square during the Revolt.
One of South Africa’s biggest funeral processions – 10 000 people – was held in the 1920s for a man widely believed to be innocent, hanged by the government of General Jan Smuts.
The man was 31-year-old Samuel Alfred Long, nicknamed Taffy, who, after two trials, was found guilty of murdering Pieter Marais during an uprising in Johannesburg that saw the city at war with its citizens, in the 1922 Miners’ Strike. The hanging took place in November 1922, and the 10 000 people marched to Brixton Cemetery where Taffy was buried.
Old photo of Taffy Long
Taffy came to symbolise the workers’ unhappiness with the mine owners at the way they handled a drop in the price of gold in 1921 – by dropping wages and employing more black miners at cheaper wages.
Many thought Taffy was innocent, but in the tensions of the time he was an Englishman who had allegedly killed an Afrikaner. The irony was that the Afrikaans government of Smuts was also killing Afrikaners, siding against them...
