In the early hours of June 26, 1952, after praying through the night, Raymond Mhlaba led 30 volunteers to defy apartheid by entering the "Europeans Only" section of New Brighton railway station, Port Elizabeth, the first act in a nationwide defiance campaign in response to the passage of a slew of apartheid legislation. They were swiftly arrested, and Mhlaba served a month’s hard labour. As one of the Rivonia treason trialists a decade later, Oom Ray, as Mhlaba was affectionately known, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 26 years, and went on to become the first premier of the new Eastern Cape.