Exciting facts about Youth Day and places to visit on the day
What better way to honour our rich history than by giving your family a Youth Day tour of how we got to where we are now.
Youth Day on June 16 is observed every year to honour the lives of students who died in Soweto in 1976 while striving to oppose the injustice of the apartheid regime.
Hastings Ndlovu and Hector Pieterson, who died while 100 others were left injured after being shot by police, were among the students fighting against the unjust educational system that mandated that Afrikaans be the only language taught in all schools.
This triggered a youth uprising that spread across the country.
Some exciting facts about Youth Day and places to go for tours:
• Sam Nzima, a well-known photographer who captured the iconic image of Hector Pieterson after being shot, passed away on May 12, 2018, in a hospital in Mpumalanga.
• It was planned that the event on June 16 would last for three days, from that day until June 18.
• On the final day, a Friday, students were expected to march to Orlando Stadium, but the police launched a massive attack on them, killing some of them.
• In Soweto, the protest began peacefully, but when the police opened fire on unarmed youth, it descended into chaos. By the third day, the disturbance had picked up steam and extended to townships near Soweto and other areas of South Africa.
• ANC supporters previously referred to Youth Day as Soweto Day, but after Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994, it was declared an official holiday.
Things you can do on the day:
• Visit Constitutional Hill
• Take the Vilakazi Street tour
• Take a visit to the Johannesburg Memorial Acre
• Visit the Apartheid Museum
• Visit Walter Sisulu Square
• Explore social media initiatives with the hashtags #June16, #SowetoUprising, #YouthDay and #Liberty
“To the youth of today, I also have a wish to make: be the scriptwriters of your destiny and feature yourselves as stars that showed the way towards a brighter future.” Nelson Mandela.
