MBOMBELA – Flashbacks to the event of June 16, 1976 are vividly remembered by former journalist and photographer Mr Sam Nzima, who took the famous photo of the fatally wounded Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubu on the corner of Moema and Vilakazi streets in Orlando West, Soweto.
Six hundred other youths were killed during the Soweto uprising against the use of Afrikaans in schools. The 13-year-old Pieterson was not part of the march but had been hit by a stray bullet while he
was going to fetch his sister from a nearby school.
The photo made the world aware of the Soweto uprisings, which began peacefully but ended in a bloodbath. According to Nzima he randomly took six quick shots of three children coming toward him before he could help them to the nearest clinic.
Nzima was also quick enough to hide the film with that photo in his socks which he immediately gave to his driver to rush to the newsroom before his film and camera could be confiscated by the police.
According to him his editor had a tough time in deciding whether to publish the photo or not. After thinking it through the image was published and began making headlines around the world that afternoon.
He received not more than a R100 bonus and congratulations from his colleagues and the editors at The World Newspaper. After considerable police harassment, Nzima resigned in 1977 and opened his own business, the Nzima Bottle Store, in Lilydale, close to the Mozambican border.
A large copy of Sam Nzima’s photograph now hangs in the Hector
Pieterson Museum in Soweto. Nzima was born on August 8, 1934 in
Lillydale and first became interested in photography when a teacher showed him a camera and how to use it.
While still at school, Sam bought a camera and began taking photos in the Kruger National Park.
