Soweto Massacre

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Meaning Of Soweto

• A city of northeast South Africa southwest of
  Johannesburg. Comprised of a number of townships
  inhabited by Black South Africans, it was the
  scene of violent rioting in 1976, when a student
  protest led to clashes with police. Population
  1,460,000.

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Cause

• On June 16, 1976, over 10,000 students in the
  township of Soweto rose up against the apartheid
  regime in South Africa. Police fired on the
  protest killing hundreds, and sparked a
  nationwide rebellion.
• The problem in Soweto started because the
  government wanted the students to be taught
  Afrikaans.

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Problem

• This was a problem for the students because the
  students felt that Afrikaans was the language of
  the oppressor.
• This was not the only source of the problem.
  Some other problems that could have sparked the
  uprising were overcrowding and high drop out
  rates in schools, the racist content of school
  programs, inadequate, poorly maintained
  facilities, and the ideology of the BCM
  penetrated into the schools

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Rights Denied

• Denied access to jobs set aside for the white
  minority, Black students received inferior
  educations.
• In 1975, the government spent about 15 times
  more on the education of a white child than on
  the education of a Black child. As explained by
  Hendrik Verwoerd, an architect of the apartheid
  system, Natives must be taught at an early age
  that equality with the Europeans is not for them.

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Why They Rebelled

• The children were tired of the results of the
  apartheid policies, tired of seeing their parents
  oppressed by the government, tired of being
  denied their freedom, and they felt that they had
  nothing to lose.
• The morning of June 16, 1976 (Thompson 212), the
  students took action.

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The Uprising

• The uprising began at 930 am when large numbers
  of school children marched down the road carrying
  large placards. Not many citizens of Soweto were
  alarmed or surprised by this protest, because
  political protests had become an established part
  of township life.
• The attitude of these protestors was simple. The
  protestors plan was to not taunt or do anything
  that would instigate fighting with the police .
  Just to protest and voice their opinions.
• The protests broke into violence when the Soweto
  police came and started firing what most
  protestors thought were plastic bullets at the
  protestors. Yet, when children began dropping to
  the cement like flies, the protestors fled. While
  attempting to flee, some smaller children were
  trampled to death by other protestors and
  witnesses attempting to flee.
• Trying to protect themselves, the children began
  throwing sticks, rocks, bricks, schoolbags, or
  whatever they could pick up off the ground. The
  fighting continued for several hours. When the
  fighting had ceased, out of the fifteen thousand
  schoolchildren involved in the protests the
  casualty count was 172 blacks killed by police,
  and 439 blacks injured by the police. Many blacks
  were wondering whom to blame for this

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Who They Thought Was To Blame

• The person that many South Africans feel was the
  cause of the Soweto uprising, as well as many
  bother awful events in South Africa's history was
  P.W. Botha, the South African Bantu Education
  Minister. Botha was the individual that was said
  to have come up with and institute the idea that
  one half of all the students' subjects were to be
  taught in Afrikaans . This ruling upset many
  different African citizens.

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Soweto Today

• Nearly 30 years since that infamous day in the
  township of Soweto when hundreds of thousands of
  students protested Bantu Education. The police
  waited for the marchers near a dusty intersection
  and unleashed hell on innocent children.
• Official reports claimed that 700 children died
  over the course of the year that the student
  uprisings occurred more than likely, these were
  conservative estimates. South Africa now
  recognizes June 16 as Youth Day in honor of the
  victims of that massacre.