March and March marches in Tshwane, Johannesburg draw 300 to 500 — South Africa
March and March marched in south africa this week in Tshwane and Johannesburg, bringing Jacinda Ngobese-Zuma’s founder-led movement into two major cities with turnouts reported at between 300 and 500 people. The group describes itself as a civic organisation, but its marches and campaigns have become a visible vehicle for anti-migrant politics.
Jacinda Ngobese-Zuma and March and March
Ngobese-Zuma is the main public face of March and March, a non-government organisation that says it uses T-shirts, marches and campaigns on its website and displays the South African flag on its merchandise. Yossabel Chetty, a researcher at Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Information Integrity in Africa, first picked up on the movement in 2025 and said, “From 2025, it ramped up. What first felt organic then became more structured posting.”
Chetty added, “It made us ask whether there are multiple people running the account. It felt amplified, not authentic.” March and March’s online reach has run ahead of its street-level numbers: a BackaBuddy crowdfunding campaign collected R13,167 toward a goal of R20,000 in six months, with donors giving an average of R200.
Tshwane and Johannesburg marches
This week’s marches in Tshwane and Johannesburg were the group’s clearest push beyond online visibility. Reports placed the crowds at between 300 and 500 people in major cities, giving the movement a physical presence even as its funding and turnout remain relatively small compared with the scale of the places it entered.
March and March has recently received support from Amabhinca Nation, which is led by former Ukhozi FM host Ngizwe Mchunu. Mchunu was charged for incitement after the 2021 July riots and was later acquitted, a background that adds another political layer to the company March and March now keeps in public view.
Durban, KuGompo and 2025
The movement’s march this week fits a faster pattern that emerged in 2025. March and March’s first big protest came in Durban after the eight-year-old twins Aphelele and Aphile Dlamini fell down an unsecured lift shaft at the Homii Lifestyle apartments, and the protests took on an anti-foreigner sentiment because the building may have been owned by non-South Africans.
On 1 April, March and March was a leading participant in violent protests in KuGompo against the performative coronation of a so-called Igbo King, with ActionSA joining the protests. That sequence shows how the group has moved from social-media messaging into street mobilisation across different cities and causes in 2025.
For residents and businesses in the cities where March and March appears next, the immediate issue is the same one that has defined its recent marches: whether a civic-style banner becomes a wider street campaign, or remains limited to turnouts in the low hundreds. The next point of public accountability is the group’s own activity, now visible in major urban centres and tied to Jacinda Ngobese-Zuma’s expanding profile.
