South African Blacks Swim at White Beach

CAPE TOWN, South Africa--Hundreds of Black and mixed-race people declared the end of apartheid on two whites-only beaches Saturday by picnicking, swimming, singing and praying under the watchful eye of the police.

Protesters at the Strand, a conservative seaside town 20 miles east of Cape Town, made "sure they had staked their claim properly. They walked around and wet their feet in God's water," said Anglican Archbishop and Harvard Overseer Desmond M. Tutu.

Wearing a yellow hat with the slogan "Free the Beaches," and a T-shirt saying, "Just Call me Arch," the 56-year-old Tutu jogged on the beach. He then held a prayer service after persuading police not to use force on the crowd, which ignored police orders over loudspeakers to disperse.

Organizers had refused to seek permission to hold the demonstration.

Some families left after the police removed foreign television crews and local photographers. But most stayed, opening their picnic lunches, swimming and wading in the water as the crowd grew to 1500.

About 100 whites watched from the roadside, many criticizing the protest. Police took no action.

"I hope that the inhabitants of the Strand will realize that we have liberated them," Tutu told a news conference later. "They don't have to watch whether Black people are walking on their beaches any longer. They will enjoy the liberation of being able to share."

Another 1000 people gathered in the eastern Cape province city of Port Elizabeth, where former Mayor Graham Richards erected a homemade sign declaring Pollock Beach, reserved for whites for 35 years, was open to all.

The City Council has tried to end beach segregation, but the provincial administrators, appointed by the governing National Party, has refused.

Seven buses brought Black people from townships 10 miles north of Port Elizabeth. Many Black youths chanted and danced around the beach, some carried banners and placards. Whites paid them little attention and mixed freely on the sand and in the water.

"This mass, non-racial picnic reminds us who we are, that we are God's family. It is human selfishness and greed that makes beaches for whites only," the Rev. David Vika of the interdenominational Ministers Association said at a prayer service after the sign was posted in the sand.

A magistrate gave permission for the Port Elizabeth demonstration, which was rained out by midafternoon.

Tutu said he was afraid that when police took the journalists away they planned to use force against the crowd. On Aug. 19, Tutu recalled, when thousands of Blacks tried to get to the Strand beach, police used whips and dogs to drive them away.

Apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 28 million Blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.