Today (June 16) is Youth Day, when we remember the youth of 1976, some of whom sacrificed their lives to stand up against the apartheid regime.
Youth Day commemorates the Soweto Uprising, which was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black schoolchildren in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. A march was mobilised by the South African Students Organisation to oppose the Afrikaans language being made compulsory as a medium of instruction in schools.
The march, intended to be a peaceful one, headed to Orlando Stadium and the students were met by police, who fired teargas and later live ammunition. More than 200 people were killed as a result.
12-year-old Hector Pieterson was one of the casualties. He became the iconic image of the 1976 Soweto Uprising in apartheid South Africa when a newspaper photograph by Sam Nzima of a dying Hector being carried by a fellow student was published around the world.
Today is celebrated not in tears but in a joyful manner due to the overthrow of the apartheid regime and the role the youth played on that fateful day back in 1976.
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In today’s society, people of different races share and engage in different ideas without violence, and students learn Afrikaans at school by choice as part of the diverse fabric that makes up South African society.
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