South Africa Gateway
Here is a tree rooted in african soil. come and sit under its shade., the 16 june 1976 soweto students’ uprising – as it happened, it took one day for young south africans to change the course of the country’s history. the day was 16 june 1976. here’s an hour-by-hour account of the 1976 soweto students’ uprising..
Young men taunt police photographers in Soweto in June 1976. ( Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising )
Mary Alexander
By 1976 the frustration had been building for a generation. Young black South Africans had become aware that the apartheid plan was to deny them a real education.
Education for ‘Bantus’
Hendrik Verwoerd on the cover of Time magazine, 26 August 1966. ( Time )
In 1953, five years after the National Party was elected on the platform of apartheid, the government passed the Bantu Education Act . This gave the central government total control of the education of black South Africans, and made independent schools for black children illegal.
The aim was simple: ensuring a stable and plentiful source of cheap labour. Black people would be educated only to the point where they were a useful but unthreatening (to white workers) workforce at the foundation of an economy built to only benefit white people.
A notorious quote by Hendrik Verwoerd, a National Party prime minister known as the “architect of apartheid”, makes the intention of the Act clear.
“There is no place for [the black person] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour,” Verwoerd said in a 1954 speech , when he was still Minister of Native Affairs.
“For that reason it is of no avail for him to receive a training which has as its aim absorption in the European community while he cannot and will not be absorbed there. Up till now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his own community and partically [sic] misled him by showing him the green pastures of the European but still did not allow him to graze there.”
Before the Act, South Africa had a rich tradition of independent mission schools. The education enjoyed by Nelson Mandela , Robert Sobukwe , Oliver Tambo , Govan Mbeki and many others allowed them to become some of the best minds in the country.
The apartheid government wanted cheap labour, but it also wanted to end the threat posed by bright African minds. Mission schools were closed, and universities such as Fort Hare had their high academic standards chopped to a stump.
A 1976 student’s poster on a fenced-in Soweto school reads: “Afrikaans is a sign of oppression, discrimination. To hell with Boere.” ( Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising )
No education – in three languages?
By 1976 young black people’s frustration with their education, and the bleak future it offered, was ready to explode. The fuse was lit when the government proposed to introduce Afrikaans as the language of teaching.
Black South Africans spoke their own languages. These had already been ignored in their education. English had long been the medium of instruction – their second language – and was a language most urban young black people were at least familiar with. Now the authorities wanted the people they had denied an education to learn a third language.
Two of the many placards produced by students during the uprising (later confiscated and photographed by the police) highlight their antagonism to Afrikaans. The placards were written in English, the students’ second language. ( Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising )
People who speak three languages are considered to be highly educated. These young people, given a rudimentary government education, were getting by in English. But almost none of them knew Afrikaans well enough to be taught in it, let alone write exams in the language.
Afrikaans was also the language of the oppressor. Today most of the people who speak Afrikaans aren’t white , but in the 1970s the language was still associated with Afrikaner nationalism, the ideology of the National Party, the nationalism of white Afrikaans-speaking people.
16 June 1976: 07h00
It’s a winter Wednesday morning, 16 June 1976. The Soweto Students Action Committee has organised the township’s high school pupils to march to Orlando Stadium to protest against the government’s new language policy.
The student leaders come mainly from three Soweto schools: Naledi High in Naledi, Morris Isaacson High in Mofolo, and Phefeni Junior Secondary , close to Vilakazi Street in Orlando.
The protest is well organised. It is to be conducted peacefully. The plan is for students to march from their schools, picking up others along the way, until they meet at Uncle Tom’s Municipal Hall . From there they are to continue to Orlando Stadium .
A photographer in a police helicopter captured this view of the students’ march, before the shooting started. ( Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising )
Students gather at Naledi High. The mood is high-spirited and cheerful. At assembly the principal gives the students his support and wishes them good luck.
Before they start the march, Action Committee chairperson Tebello Motopanyane addresses the students, emphasising that the march must be disciplined and peaceful.
At the same time, students gather at Morris Isaacson High . Action Committee member Tsietsi Mashinini speaks, also emphasising peace and order. The students set out.
On the way they pass other schools and numbers swell as more students join the march. Some Soweto students are not even aware that the march is happening.
“The first time we heard of it was during our short break,” said Sam Khosa of Ibhongo Secondary School. “Our leaders informed the principal that students from Morris Isaacson were marching. We then joined one of the groups and marched.”
There are eventually 11 columns of students marching to Orlando Stadium – up to 10 000 of them, according to some estimates.
There have been a few minor skirmishes with police along the way. But now the police barricade the students’ path, stopping the march.
Tietsi Mashinini climbs on a tractor so everyone can see him, and addresses the crowd.
“Brothers and sisters, I appeal to you – keep calm and cool. We have just received a report that the police are coming. Don’t taunt them, don’t do anything to them. Be cool and calm. We are not fighting.”
It is a tense moment for police and students. Police retreat to wait for reinforcements. The students continue their march.
The marchers arrive at today’s Hector Pieterson Square . Police again stop them.
Here everything changed. There have been different accounts of what started the shooting.
The atmosphere is tense. But the students remain calm and well-ordered.
Suddenly a white policeman lobs a teargas canister into the front of the crowd. People run out of the smoke dazed and coughing. The crowd retreats slightly, but remain facing the police, waving placards and singing.
Police have now surrounded the column of students, blocking the march at the front and behind. At the back of the crowd a policeman sets his dog on the students. The students retaliate, throwing stones at the dog.
A policeman at the back of the crowd draws his revolver. Black journalists hear someone shout, “Look at him. He’s going to shoot at the kids.”
The only picture we have of Hastings Ndlovu is from his tombstone. Here it is used on the information board at the Hastings Ndlovu memorial site in Orlando West in Soweto.
A single shot rings out. Hastings Ndlovu , 17 years old (other sources say 15), is the first to be shot. He dies later in hospital.
After the first shot, police at the front of the crowd panic and open fire.
Twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson collapses, fatally injured. He is picked up and carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo , a fellow student, who runs towards Phefeni Clinic . Pieterson’s crying sister Antoinette Sithole runs alongside. The moment is immortalised by photographer Sam Nzima , and the image becomes an emblem of the uprising.
There is pandemonium in the crowd. Children scream. More shots are fired. At least four students have fallen to the ground. The rest run screaming in all directions.
Dr Malcolm Klein, a coloured doctor in the trauma unit at Baragwanath Hospital, is on his break when a nurse summons him, distress on her face.
“I followed her and was met by a grisly scene: a rush of orderlies wheeling stretchers bearing the bodies of bloodied children into the resuscitation room,” he recalled later. “All had the red ‘Urgent Direct’ stickers stuck to their foreheads …
“I stared in horror at the stretcher bearing the body of a young boy in a neat school uniform, a bullet wound to one side of his head, blood spilling out of a large exit wound on the other side, the gurgle of death in his throat. Only later would I learn his name: Hastings Ndlovu.”
Anger at the killings sparks retaliation.
Buildings and vehicles belonging to the government’s West Rand Administrative Buildings are set alight. Bottle stores are burned and looted.
More students are killed by police, particularly in encounters near Regina Mundi Church in Orlando and the Esso garage in Chiawelo . As students are stopped by the police in one area, they move their protest action elsewhere.
By the end of the day most of Soweto has felt the impact of the protest.
Schools close early, at about noon. Many students, so far unaware of the day’s events, walk out of school to a township on fire. Many join the protests. The uprising gains intensity.
Fires continue into the night. Armoured police cars, later known as “hippos”, start moving into Soweto.
Official figures put the death toll for 16 June at 23 people killed. Other reports say it was at least 200.
Most of the victims are under 23, and many shot in the back. Many more survive with disabling injuries.
The aftermath
The uprising spreads across South Africa. By the end of the year about 575 people have died across the country, 451 at the hands of police.
The injured number 3 907, with the police responsible for 2 389 of them. During the course of 1976, about 5 980 people are arrested in the townships.
International solidarity movements are roused as an immediate consequence of the revolt. They soon give their support to the students, putting pressure on the apartheid government to temper its repressive rule. Many students leave South Africa to join the exiled liberation movements.
This pressure is maintained through the 1980s, until resistance movements are finally unbanned in 1990. Four years later, on 27 and 28 April 1994, South Africa holds its first democratic elections.
Sources and more information
See the South African History Online feature The June 16 Soweto Youth Uprising .
Additional information – particularly the memories of Baragwanath Hospital trauma doctor Malcolm Klein – sourced from “The Soweto Uprising – Part 1” by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu, in chapter 7 of The Road to Democracy in South Africa Volume 2 , published by the South African Democracy Education Trust . Many events omitted from this timeline are to be found in this comprehensive and moving account. The chapter can be downloaded in PDF .
Researcher Helena Pohlandt-McCormick has made a wealth of testimony, photos and documents about the 1976 student uprising available online. Browse her outstanding archive Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising .
Researched and written by Mary Alexander. Updated 15 June 2021.
Categories: History
Tagged as: Afrikaans , apartheid , education , Gauteng , History , language , population groups , Soweto
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- TeachableMoment
Soweto Uprising: How a Student-Led Movement Changed History
On June 16, 1976, young people in South Africa mobilized a powerful protest against the apartheid regime's education policies. The Soweto Uprising became an epic fight that contributed to the end of apartheid. In this activity, students learn about the Soweto Uprising as well as two recent U.S. youth-led movements that are fighting injustice, Dream Defenders and March for Our Lives.
On June 16, South Africans, and people around the world, will mark the anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, a 1976 student-led rebellion that had a profound impact on the movement to overthrow apartheid in South Africa. June 16 is Youth Day in South Africa, a national holiday commemorating the courage displayed by students who stood against the apartheid government. This two-part lesson explores the essential question, “How do oppressed people fight back against injustice and oppression?” In Part 1 of the lesson, students learn about the Soweto Uprising through video and discussion. In Part 2, students examine two recent youth-led social justice organizations in the United States: Dream Defenders and March for Our Lives, and relate them to the anti-apartheid youth movement.
Note: This lesson explores a powerful protest that also resulted in the deaths of hundreds of young protesters. Before beginning the lesson, consider how students may react and how to ensure a supportive classroom climate for the discussion. You may want to review these guidelines for discussing upsetting issues.
Celebrating Youth Day in Soweto, 2016, Government of South Africa
Part one: the soweto uprising.
Background Information for the Teacher
The Black South African challenge to apartheid and the student-led Soweto Uprising offer powerful examples of how oppressed people can fight back against their oppressors.
Though South Africa had been an oppressive, racist government since its inception, apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning “separateness,” was adopted as official policy in 1948. In this predominantly Black country, Black South Africans couldn’t vote or own property and were forced to live in isolated, impoverished rural communities or shantytowns surrounding major cities. Blacks also were required to carry a passbook that designated where they could live and work.
In 1953, a law called the Bantu Education Act codified into the law the separate and unequal educational system for Blacks that had also already been in existence. Under the Act, the curriculum in Black schools was designed to keep Black students in their place of assumed inferiority and get them ready for menial, low-wage labor.
The man known as the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, stated:
“The Natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them. There is no place for the Bantu child above the level of certain forms of labor."
In 1975, Black South African students were told they had to begin learning their major subjects, mathematics and social studies, in a new language, Afrikaans – the language of the people who had created apartheid and made life miserable for them and their parents. Up until then, they’d been learning in English and, early on, in both English and the native language of their tribe. Now, as high school students, they were required to begin learning in Afrikaans, the language of their oppressors.
For students already learning in segregated, poorly-funded schools under the harsh apartheid regime that marginalized and, at times, murdered Blacks, that was the tipping point.
Many students decided they could no longer stand for the injustices of the South African educational system. The Soweto Uprising of 1976 is one of the best known events in the struggle against apartheid.
On June 16, 1976, an estimated twenty thousand students in Soweto, a township of the city of Johannesburg, left their schools and marched in peaceful protest of their educational system. (Emphasize to students that in the months of organizing and preparing for their march it was always organized to be a peaceful protest.)
When police arrived, they began shooting students who would not disperse when ordered. Nevertheless, during the next 10 days, students and parents continued to protest. The official death toll rose to 176, with two whites and 174 Blacks counted dead. Actual deaths, however, were significantly higher. According to the government-appointed Cillie Commission of Inquiry, 575 people died; police action resulted in 451 deaths; 3,907 people were injured; and the police were responsible for 2,389 injuries. Both the death and inquiry figures were disputed by various sources as being too low. The number of people arrested for offenses related to the resistance was said to be 5,980.
Within four months of the Soweto revolt, 160 African communities all over the country were involved in resistance. It was estimated that at least 250,000 people in Soweto were actively involved in the resistance, and 1,298 people were arrested for offenses ranging from attending illegal meetings, arson to terrorism and furthering the aims of banned organizations.
In the early 1990s, after nearly two decades of continued struggle, apartheid ended in South Africa. Nelson Mandela, the nation’s first Black president, was elected in 1994.
Classroom Activity Part 1
Introduction (5 minutes)
Ask students to list all they know about segregation in the United States during the Jim Crow era. During this period, both laws and customs oppressed, disenfranchised, and economically disadvantaged African Americans and other people of color and gave unfair advantages to whites.
After they’ve compiled their list, spend a minute explaining that many of the same legal restrictions existed in South Africa since its founding in 1910. For decades, Black South Africans worked to change things.
Simulation (3 minutes)
Announce to students that during the next school year, they’ll be required to learn all of their lessons in Russian or some other language that none or few of your students speak. Ask students for their reactions.
Students are likely to express outrage and disbelief. (One of my students even said the same thing that South Africans students did in 1975: “We’re gonna fail!”) After a minute or less of “student protest,” quickly let them know that of course they won’t be required to learn in Russian. But in 1975 in South Africa, this was real for Black students!
Video & Discussion (6-8 minutes)
Play one of the video or audio clips listed below.
Video Clips: Tsietsi Mashinini https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4yyMgEd0YM (End at 5:49) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6rPFAvi20 (End at 5:34)
Audio Clip: Sibongile Mkhabela (Bongi) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cswsrr (End at 8:45)
Next, break the class into small groups and have students lead a discussion on how students organize to dismantle oppression using the discussion prompts below (17 – 19 minutes)
Prompts for either of the Tsietsi Mashinini videos:
- What do you think gave Tsietsi Mashinini, and students at the other schools involved, the courage to organize and participate in the mass protest?
- This uprising went on for months even though within the first two weeks nearly 600 Blacks were murdered, and thousands injured. Why do you think students and adults continued in the face of such government violence? (Have students use whatever background knowledge they have about America’s Civil Rights Movement waged by African Americans when thinking about this discussion prompt.)
Prompts for Bongi audio:
- Bongi spoke about the courage it took for students to stage their protest march and she mentioned that one of her classmates broke out in song. How does music play a role in protest movements? Why is music so powerful? What else gave students the courage to march on June 16, 1976?
- This uprising went on for months even though within the first two weeks nearly 600 Blacks were murdered, and thousands injured. Why do you think students and adults continued in the face of such harsh government repression? (Have students use whatever background knowledge they have about America’s Civil Rights Movement waged by African Americans when thinking about this discussion prompt.)
Closing: (9 minutes)
Reconvene the entire class and have students report back. Ask:
- What is your understanding of how oppressed people organize to dismantle injustice and oppression?
- What are your thoughts on the Soweto Uprising of June 16, 1976?
PART TWO: Dream Defenders & March for Our Lives
In this activity, students learn about two recent U.S. campaigns for justice led by young people. After researching these groups and their goals, students will discuss these organizing efforts in light of what they have learned about the Soweto Uprising and the youth movement against apartheid.
Background Information for the Teacher
1. Dream Defenders
Dream Defenders is an organization that was founded by young activists who marched together to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin . Trayvon Martin, 17, was shot by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012.
On July 16, 2012, three days after Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting, the Dream Defenders streamed into the governor’s suite to hold a sit-in and to demand changes to Florida’s self-defense laws – specifically the Stand Your Ground provision . The Dream Defenders were protesting the way students of color were treated in the state’s schools as well as its streets. They vowed to stay until a special legislative session was called on their issues.
They weren’t able to convince Gov. Rick Scott to call a special session on the controversial Stand Your Ground self-defense law. They did, however, draw national attention to their cause by holding one of the longest sit-in demonstrations ever in the Florida Capitol. They ended the sit-in after 31 days, at which time House Speaker, Will Weatherford, agreed to speak with them about the Stand Your Ground Law.
Dream Defenders List of Freedoms:
- Freedom from poverty
- Freedom from prisons and police
- Freedom of mind
- A free, flourishing democracy
- Freedom of movement
- Freedom from war, violence and environmental destruction
- Freedom to be
Sources/Additional Reading
- https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/us/dream-defenders-arent-walking-out-on-their-florida-protest.html
- https://www.wuft.org/news/2013/10/15/who-are-the-dream-defenders/
- https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/article1954155.html
2. March for Our Lives
The March for Our Lives movement began shortly after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. Student survivors decided to stage a rally in Washington, D.C., on March 24, a little more than a month after the tragedy. It was the largest march ever against gun violence, and one of the largest protests in U.S. history.
The march and subsequent March for Our Lives organizing not only called for gun control and an end to gun violence but also protested police brutality, domestic abuse, and advocated for LGBTQ rights. The movement also mobilized for youth participation in the 2018 elections and in the political process in general.
March for Our Lives Policy to Save Lives:
- Fund gun violence research
- Eliminate absurd restrictions on the ATF
- Universal background checks
- High-capacity magazine ban
- Limit firing power on the streets
- Funding for intervention programs
- Extreme risk protection orders
- Disarm all domestic abusers
- Gun trafficking
- Safe storage and mandatory theft reporting
Additional Reading
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/march-for-our-lives-student-activists-showed-meaning-tragedy-180970717/
- https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/us/march-for-our-lives/index.html
Classroom Activity Part 2
Introduction (6 minutes)
Ask students:
- Who has heard of the Dream Defenders movement?
- Who has heard of the March for Our Lives movement?
Next, give a brief history of both movements based on how much students do or don’t know about each group.
Independent Learning/Small Group Work (20 minutes)
Divide students into two groups. One group will research the Dream Defenders and the other will research the March for Our Lives movement.
Direct students to each organization’s website.
The Dream Defenders group will tab onto the “ Freedom Papers ” section of the website. The group will break into subgroups of 3-4, with each subgroup examining two of the seven “Freedoms” the Dream Defenders espouse as part of their platform. Students will then discuss what they’ve read using the following discussion prompts:
- Do you agree or disagree with the statements you just read? Why or why not?
- How do you think the Dream Defenders will achieve their stated goals? (To answer this prompt students should check out other parts of the website.)
The March for Our Lives group will click on the Policy Agenda tab. The group will break into subgroups of 3-4, with each subgroup assigned to examine two of the ten policy agenda items. Students will then discuss what they’ve read using the following discussion prompts:
- How do you feel about the policy agenda items you read?
- What steps are the student organizers taking to secure the changes they’re demanding in their policy agenda? (To answer this prompt students should check out other parts of the website.)
Whole Class Discussion (10 - 15 minutes) Reconvene the class to discuss both movements, and relate them to our previous exploration of the Soweto Uprising.
Ask students:
- What stood out for you in your exploration of Dream Defenders or March for Our Lives?
- What strategies did the movement use?
- What impact did the movement have on society?
- What are the parallels between these two movements and the events of June 16, 1976?
- What do these two U.S. movements have in common with the Soweto Uprising?
- How are they different?
Closing (4 minutes)
Ask students to share one thing they will take away from today’s discussion.
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