Bloody Sunday: The Nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa's Secret Massacre

By (author): Mignonne Breier. Mignonne Breier's history uncovers the Duncan Village massacre of 9 November 1952 in East London, one of the deadliest and least-known episodes of apartheid-era violence. A crowd gathered during the ANC's Defiance Campaign was fired on by police, and the ensuing chaos saw a Dominican nun, Sister Aidan, killed alongside an insurance agent — triggering a police crackdown in which the true death toll, likely over 200, was covered up through hasty burials. Drawing on extensive research into police records, ANC accounts and court proceedings, Breier reconstructs why this massacre — bigger than Sharpeville — was buried by history.