Youth Day 2021
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUTH DAY?
Did you know that Youth Day was Previously known as Soweto Day?
What was the reason behind the June 16 riots?
The riots were ignited by Government ruling that all teaching in black schools would be held in Afrikaans.
The issue was not so much the teaching in Afrikaans, but rather the whole system of education which was characterised by separate schools and universities, poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms and inadequately trained teachers for the black majority.
Students throughout Soweto organised a peaceful protest on June 16, 1976. That morning, between 5,000 and 15,000 students walked out of their schools and assembled for a march toward Orlando Stadium. Along the path, police formed a wall and demanded the crowd disperse. When the protestors refused, without warning, police opened fire on the unarmed marchers. The event devolved into a full-scale conflict, as police continued shooting protestors and protestors began to riot, targeting apartheid symbols such as government buildings, vehicles and beer halls. Though official government records listed just 23 students killed, the death toll is generally given as 176 with estimates as high as 700.
How much do you know about the iconic picture of a black schoolchild shot by the police?
Hector Pieterson, just 12-years-old at the time, was one of the first children to die during the student protest. A photo, taken of Pieterson’s lifeless body being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubu with his sister Antoinette Sithole running beside them, became the iconic image of the 1976 Soweto Uprising — one that made its way around the world and highlighted the brutalities of the Apartheid regime to many people within and outside South Africa.
This Youth Day let us all remember those brave students of 1976.
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