On our last day in South Africa, we visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial in the black township of Soweto, in Johannesburg. There we met Antoinette Pieterson Sithole, Hector’s older sister, who gave us a firsthand account of the events of June 16, 1976, when she was 16-years-old.
One of the tools of the Apartheid government was to control the education of black students. In the 1970s, they decided that the high school curriculum would only be taught in Afrikaans, rather than English or local languages like Zulu or Xhosa. The mandate was seen as a cultural erasure of students’ native heritages. And, unlike English, which was spoken all over the world, Afrikaans is only spoken in South Africa. It is seen as the language of the oppressor. So it limited students’ ability to leave this oppressive regime.
Soweto’s high school students started staging non-violent protests of the new language requirement. They met with school officials and boycotted classes. Eventually, they decided to hold a peaceful march from all of the high schools in Soweto to the nearby Orlando Stadium on June 16, 1976.
Between 10,000 – 20,000 students started off. One of those students was 16-year-old Antoinette Pieterson. Antoinette saw her little brother, Hector, in the crowd. He was not supposed to be there, as he was only 12. She caught up with him, and told him to hide, which he did. Then the police tried to disburse the crowd with tear gas and they got separated. And then they opened fire on the students. Antoinette could not her little brother in the chaos.
Antoinette heard a commotion a few blocks away but did not know what it was. The police opened fire into the crowd, and young Hector was one of the first children to be killed by the police that day. By the end of the day, police had murdered 176 children (official count). By many accounts, the number was over 700.
Antoinette saw young Mbuyisa Makhubu, who was passing by, carrying Hector and ran with him to get help. Photojournalist Sam Nzima was there, and took this picture.
Nzima, understanding the gravity of the photo, took the film out of his camera and put it into his sock in case his camera was confiscated by the police, which it was. He snuck the roll out to his newspaper which published it immediately, and it was then reprinted all over the world, sparking international outrage over the brutality of the South African government. The United Nations passed a resolution which formally condemned the brutal murders, which was followed by years of economic boycotts and divestment campaigns, and worldwide pressure on the South African government to end Apartheid, which it eventually did in 1994, nearly 20 years later.
Antoinette has dedicated her life to teaching people about the Soweto Uprising at the Hector Pieterson Memorial. I cannot imagine what that is like. Here is a short film reel of her talking about it so you can see for yourself.
Internationally acclaimed singer, Miriam Makeba sang about the Soweto Uprising in the song, Soweto Blues, written by Hugh Masekela.
The fictional story of Sarafina!, which was made into a Broadway play and a movie, centers on the Uprising.
Antoinette Pieterson Sithole faces the tragedy of her brother’s death every day, speaking to visitors of the Memorial, and encouraging us to stand up for what we believe to be right, as she did.
Now June 16 is a commemorated as National Youth Day in South Africa, as the nation remembers the children who lost their lives and their part in ending Apartheid on that terrible day.