Soweto uprising

The Soweto uprising was a wave of protests led by Black schoolchildren in Soweto, the large township outside Johannesburg in South Africa, that began on 16 June 1976. Students marching against the compulsory use of Afrikaans in their schools were fired on by police, and the killings set off unrest across the country in which hundreds died. The uprising revived resistance to apartheid at home and abroad, and 16 June is now commemorated in South Africa as Youth Day.

Under apartheid, Black pupils were taught in a separate system run by the Department of Bantu Education. Many Black South Africans preferred English, the main language of commerce, and associated Afrikaans with the government that oppressed them. The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 required Black schools to teach in Afrikaans and English on an equal footing, and from January 1975 officials in the Transvaal ordered that mathematics, arithmetic and social studies be taught in Afrikaans from standard five. Since few people in Soweto spoke Afrikaans, pupils faced learning subjects in a language they barely understood. Teachers' associations objected, and Desmond Tutu, then bishop of Lesotho, called Afrikaans "the language of the oppressor". A deputy minister of Bantu Education said bluntly that he had not consulted Black people and did not intend to.

On 30 April 1976 pupils at Orlando West Junior School went on strike, and the boycott spread to other Soweto schools. At a meeting on 13 June, students led by Tsietsi Mashinini of Morris Isaacson High School formed an action committee, later the Soweto Students' Representative Council, with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement. It planned a peaceful march for 16 June to a rally at Orlando Stadium.

That morning thousands of students, perhaps as many as 20,000 according to some estimates, set out from their schools carrying placards with slogans such as "Down with Afrikaans". Finding the road blocked by police, they changed route and gathered near Orlando High School. The police used tear gas and dogs and then opened fire with live ammunition. Among the first killed were 15-year-old Hastings Ndlovu and 12-year-old Hector Pieterson. A photograph by Sam Nzima of the dying Pieterson being carried by a fellow student, Mbuyisa Makhubo, with his sister Antoinette running alongside, was published around the world and became the defining image of the uprising. Students also killed two white people, among them Melville Edelstein, a welfare official who had run social projects in Soweto. Beer halls and government buildings were set alight.

On 17 June some 1,500 heavily armed police were deployed in Soweto, and hundreds of people were arrested. About 400 white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg in protest at the killings. Protests and riots spread to townships across the country, including Port Elizabeth, where 33 people died in August, and Cape Town, where 92 died in August and September. The UN Security Council condemned the government in Resolution 392.

The number killed in Soweto is usually given as at least 176, although the government's first figure was 23; more than 1,000 people were wounded. The official Cillié Commission counted 575 deaths across the country by the end of February 1977, while other estimates were higher.

The uprising marked a turning point in the struggle against apartheid, renewing opposition both inside South Africa and internationally. The rand fell sharply and the government faced a crisis. The African National Congress distributed leaflets with the slogan "Free Mandela, hang Vorster", a reference to the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum opened near the site of his shooting in 2002, and 16 June is also observed internationally as the Day of the African Child.

Our 1960 and 1985 maps show South Africa under apartheid. In October 1976, months after the uprising, the government declared Transkei the first nominally independent homeland, a move internationally derided.