Soweto-oprøret i 1976

The Soweto uprising were protests made by 20.000 black school children in South Africa that started June 16, 1976 and went on until June 18, 1976. In the township of Soweto in Johannesburg, the school children went to the streets to protest the introduction of Afrikaans as a language to use to teach in, in the local schools. The black schools were forced to use Afrikaans and English in a mix as languages to teach in. On June 16 the students started a protest at Orlando Stadium. The protest was supposed to be peaceful, and a lot of the teachers supported it but when the police started showing up it went a different way. When the students started carrying signs saying ‘’down with Afrikaans’’, ‘’Viva Azania’’ and ‘’if we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu’’, the police started showing up and barring their way. The protestors were told not to provoke the police, so they continued the protest at another route near the Orlando High school. The protest suddenly started getting violent and out of hand, when the police again showed up and started releasing dogs into the crowd, were the protestors ended up stoning the dogs to death. The police then began to open fire on and shoot directly at the students and protestors. Over 176 people were killed that day, though some sources say that up till 700 people were killed. 13-year-old Hector Pieterson was the first child shot by the apartheid police officers in the Soweto uprising and his picture has become an iconic photo and a symbol of the uprising.