Soweto Uprising — June 1976/America in Protest — May 2020

(The picture of a dying Hector Pieterson started the movement that eventually ended apartheid in South Africa. Will the video of a dying George Floyd bring about serious change in America?)

|| A LEARNING MOMENT ||

Hector Pieterson. How many of you know his name?

This month marks the 44th anniversary of his 1976 murder by South African government in what is now called the Soweto Uprising — a series of protests led by Black students. Most just children.

It was the famous picture of this 12-year old dying child, that brought worldwide attention to the evil and inhumane system of apartheid. It wasn’t that this system was not known to the world for decades, generations, before this… but it was the scene of this dying child in the arms of a distraught older child being rushed to the hospital — as his hysterical sister kept pace — that seemed to have finally made the difference.

Not unlike the way the George Floyd video has brought worldwide attention to the evil and inhumane systematic racism (click this link for a definition of ‘Systemic’ or ‘Institutionalized’ Racism) in the United States. It wasn’t that the system was not known to the world for decades, generations, before this . . . but it was the scene of George Floyd calling for his dead mother as a police officer’s knee is pressing down on his neck that seem to have finally made the difference.

In 1925, Afrikaans — a language bastardized from Portuguese, Dutch (with Bantu influences) — was declared the official language of South Africa. Fifty years later the South African government declared that 50 percent of all lessons (math, science , etc.) in Black schools had to be taught in Afrikaans and the other 50 percent in English.

This forced Black students to lose opportunity for critical analysis, as they had to focus on understanding the language as opposed to the lesson being taught.

Forced to learn the language of their oppressors — a language so ignored by the world that even the oppressors who invented it barely used it.

White schools were not so restricted, students were largely taught in their own native languages.

In February 1976, two Soweto teachers quit rather than be forced to teach the lessons in Afrikaans.

In April of that year, Orlando West Junior School refused to attend classes.

The protest quickly spread, and soon the majority of students in Soweto schools were refusing to attend.

By mid-June the students had self-organized (they would later be known as the Soweto Students’ Representative Council), and Tsiesti Machinini, a student and head of the debate team of Morris Isaacson High School, suggested a three-day rally.

So on June 16, thousands of students headed to the Orlando High School stadium shouting slogans and carrying signs, some of which read: “If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu.” (John Vorster was prime minister of South Africa at the time.) as they marched to the demonstration site.

When they were stopped by police-erected road barricades, instead of trying to forcibly removing the barricades they simply took a detour.

It’s estimated they were 20,000 in number, these young students, by the time they reached the school. Waiting for them were armed police officers.

The students began singing ‘Nkosi Sikelele’, a Black liberation song and the official anthem of the African National Congress.

Nkosi Sikeleli group song led by Miriam Makeba, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Paul Simon

When a police dog was released on the crowd it was promptly killed by the students.

It was then that police started shooting.

Some say that it was 15-year old Hastings Ndlovu who was shot first, but it’s widely believed that Pieterson was actually the first fatality.

As he lay dying on the ground his body was scooped by another student, Mbuyisa Makhubo. Photographer Sam Nzima’s iconic photograph shows Makhubo carrying young Hector Pieterson as he runs for help, and Pieterson’s terrified sister, Antoinette Sithole, crying as she runs alongside of them.

Twelve-year old Hector was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital.

Nzima’s photograph was published in The World, an Black newspaper out of Johannesburg, and later picked up by media outlets around the world.

At first the South African government said. the police had not fired directly on the students, but on the ground, and the bullet fatal must have ricocheted off of a stone to hit Pieterson.

An autopsy later proved that to be false — the boy was killed by a direct shot.

What started out as a demonstration, soon became an uprising, a rebellion, or a riot — depending upon your sociopolitical outlook — that lasted three days. Hundreds of students died as they used stones and bottles as weapons against heavily armed police.

Even tanks were brought in by law enforcement to squelch the rebellion, but still the students fought.

And, to the government’s astonishment, there were some right in their own country who sided with the young Sowetans .

At one point, 400 white students from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg attempted to join the Soweto students, but were stopped and disbanded by police.

The government demanded that hospitals report all people with gunshot wounds so that they could be prosecuted.

Instead, sympathetic doctors listed bullet wounds as abscesses.

What later became known as the Soweto Students Uprising, motivated students around the country; soon student demonstrations, rallies, and protests we’re being held nationwide, and now international media was there to document it all.

And the small number of people who decried apartheid worldwide soon numbered in millions.

Faced with severe criticism and — more importantly — financial sanctions, the South African government had no choice but to abolish the evil system.

June 16 is a national holiday in South Africa, called National Youth Day to honor the students of Soweto who fought, against injustice.

Personally, I don’t think you need to be a South. African or in South Africa to honor them.

Everyone in South Africa knew about the apartheid being practiced in their country, they knew about the inequality, oppression, and brutality that the Blacks in South Africa experienced. A lot of them even expressed sympathy. But it wasn’t until they saw that picture… that in dynamic, heart-wrenching, picture of a dying 12-year-old Hector Pieterson that they were moved to get out of there comfortable homes and get out in the streets to loudly protest their governments treatment of their fellow citizens.

Quite a bit like the George Floyd video; him lying prone on the streets with a police officer kneeling on his neck, cutting off his breathing. It was that in-your-face, dynamic, heart wrenching video of a dying George Floyd that finally moved — not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of Americans to get out in the streets to loudly protest the government-sanctioned oppression and brutality of their fellow citizens.

There is no need for the full story and background that accompanies the George Floyd video to be recounted here in the way that the Hector Pieterson murder worse recounted… We all know about it.

What does it say about us, as human beings, that knowing about inhumanity does not prod us to action to help our fellow human being? It seems that it is only when we have no choice but to actually see it — in a dynamic heart-wrenching manner that we act as if it is real and must be addressed.

I wonder, could it be that people are not responding to the dying person’s pain — or the pain of his community — as much as they are simply responding to the pain that they feel having seen it.

There’s a difference… Can you see it?

What’s does it say about you?