Remembering the Soweto Uprising
June 16, 2016
Earlier today, June 16, South Africans marked the 40th anniversary of the bloody Soweto Uprising of 1976. The uprising began as a protest against education programs under South Africa’s policy of racial segregation known as apartheid. Apartheid lasted from the late 1940’s to the early 1990’s. The Soweto uprising and its aftermath motivated black Africans to become more organized in their struggle for freedom. It also forced the South African government to make gradual reforms that slowly led to the end of apartheid.
In 1975, protests started in African schools after the government decreed that Afrikaans had to be used equally with English as languages of instruction in secondary schools. Although Afrikaans—the language of the ruling white minority—was at best a third language for most black Africans, the education problems under apartheid were much broader. Black students had separate schools and universities, and the facilities were old, ill funded, overcrowded, and often led by inadequately trained teachers. The protests, then, were the result of years of frustration and discrimination.
The first protest in Soweto (now part of Johannesburg) took place on June 16, 1976, as thousands of schoolchildren marched through the streets. Police opened fire on the children, killing two and wounding several others. This action prompted disturbances in many parts of South Africa during the next few months. Several clashes erupted between black Africans and the police, and at least 575 people, almost all of them young black Africans, were killed.
Soon after the uprising, the South African government enacted some reforms. It recognized black African trade unions, allowed township residents to take possession of their property under 99-year leases, and promoted a black middle class. In Soweto, the construction of new schools and houses began, bringing an end to a long period of no development.
In response to domestic and international pressure, South Africa began repealing apartheid laws in the 1970′s and 1980′s. In 1990 and 1991, the government repealed most of the remaining laws that had formed the legal basis of apartheid.
Soweto is South Africa’s largest urban black African community. Originally set up to house people forcibly removed from Johannesburg, it became an important center in the struggle for democracy in South Africa. Soweto became part of the city of Johannesburg in 1995.