The Soweto uprising
Schoolchildren marching against being taught in Afrikaans are shot by police, setting off a nationwide revolt and a new generation of resistance.
- The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising — South African History Online
- South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid — Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, Routledge (2016)
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report — Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (1998)
In 1974 the government ordered that half of subjects in Black secondary schools be taught in Afrikaans, a language many pupils and teachers barely spoke and saw as the language of the oppressor. Inspired by Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness movement, students in Soweto organised. On the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands of schoolchildren set off on a peaceful march. Police fired on them, and among the first killed was the schoolboy Hector Pieterson. Sam Nzima’s photograph of him carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo, with his sister Antoinette running alongside, went around the world.
- The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising — South African History Online
- South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid — Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, Routledge (2016)
The protests spread to townships across the country over the following months. The number of dead is usually given as 176, though estimates run to 700 or more, and official figures at the time were far lower. Thousands of young people fled to join the ANC in exile, bringing new energy to the liberation movement. In September 1977 Steve Biko died after being beaten in police custody, and in October the government banned Black Consciousness organisations. The Afrikaans decree was withdrawn, but the generation of 1976 had changed the struggle.
- The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising — South African History Online
- A History of South Africa — Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, Yale University Press (2014)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report — Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (1998)
Today the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum stands a few blocks from where he fell, and every 16 June young people retrace the march. Older Sowetans sometimes say the youth of 1976 gave up their schooling for freedom, a sacrifice whose cost, in lost education and lost lives, many families still feel.
- The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising — South African History Online
- South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid — Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger, Routledge (2016)
Why it matters today
16 June is Youth Day, a public holiday, and the photograph of the dying Hector Pieterson is one of the defining images of the struggle. The "class of '76" is honoured as the generation that broke the silence of the 1960s. The uprising is still invoked whenever young South Africans protest, as students did in 2015–16.