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. To hell with Boere. 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. 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. The protest is well organised. It is to be conducted peacefully. From there they are to continue to Orlando Stadium. 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.
We then joined one of the groups and marched. There are eventually 11 columns of students marching to Orlando Stadium — up to 10 of them, according to some estimates. There have been a few minor skirmishes with police along the way. We have just received a report that the police are coming. Be cool and calm.
We are not fighting. It is a tense moment for police and students. Police retreat to wait for reinforcements. Whereas should have distant, it was instead immediate. The uprising has always been contested. In the immediate aftermath, various liberation movements jostled for ownership over the student movement, claiming influence. As the African National Congress ANC emerged as the dominant internal opposition movement in the country, it increasingly absorbed the uprising into its official lore.
Likewise, the historiography of the uprising itself is not static. After the fall of apartheid, important interventions allowed a more nuanced understanding of the uprising based on testimony.
I felt that there might be many people like myself who witnessed, experienced and participated in the uprising, but who experienced it differently to those who are mentioned in the many books about June Students emerged here not as pawns of history, but as fully realised historical actors. Students Must Rise , a collection published in , partly in response to contemporary student activism, situated events in Soweto in a broader historical continuum and drew out important considerations and distinctions: of gender, class, region and generation Heffernan et al.
South Africans, and historians of South Africa, continue to grapple with the content and legacy of the uprising that began 45 years ago, on 16 June The author would like to thank Wayne Dooling for his comments on an earlier version of this piece. Bonner, Philip, and Lauren Segal Soweto: A History. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman. Soweto, 16 June Personal Accounts of the Uprising.
Cape Town: Kwela Books. Brown, Julian Johannesburg: Jacana Media. Heffernan, Anne, and Noor Nieftagodien, eds Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Hirson, Baruch Year of Fire, Year of Ash. London: Zed Press. Hyslop, Jonathan Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.
Lodge, Tom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Black Politics in South Africa since London: Longman. Marx, Anthony Oxford: Oxford University Press. The youngest student to be killed was year-old Hector Pieterson, whose photo became the symbol of the Soweto Uprising. Hector was on his way to meet his sister at her school when he got shot by the police. The shootings occurred until nightfall that day. The government reports that only 23 students were killed, but it is estimated that up to were killed with over a thousand people being wounded.
Images of the Soweto Uprising shocked the world. The photograph of a dying Hector Pieterson, which was taken by photojournalist Sam Nzima, outraged the world and brought attention to the Apartheid government.
Each year, there is a different theme for Youth Month.
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