Women played a key role, encouraging the larger democratic movement to include women’s issues and fostering the leadership of women. The newly formed Federation of South African Women began organizing women of all races to fight together for equality. Before apartheid began in 1948 there were cases of women fighting racial oppression in South Africa. One important such process was on 23 September 1913. The main movements through which women expressed their growing political awareness in the 1930s were therefore the ANC, the CPSA and the trade union movement. It is only over the last three or four decades that women's role in the history of South Africa has, belatedly, been given some recognition. Previously the history of women's political organization, their struggle for freedom from oppression, for community rights and, importantly, for gender equality, was largely ignored in history texts. Not only did most of these older books lean heavily towards white political development to the detriment of studies of the history and interaction of whites with other racial groups, but they also focused on the achievements of men (often on their military exploits or leadership ability) virtually leaving women out of South African history.